
' 






FRIENDSHIP THE MASTER- PASSION 



OR 



THE NATURE AND HISTORY OF FRIENDSHIP, AND 
ITS PLACE AS A FORCE IN THE WORLD 



BY 



H. CLAY TRUMBULL 

w 

Author of "The Blood Covenant," " Kadesh-Barnea,' 
"The Knightly Soldier," etc. 



PHILADELPHIA 
JOHN D. WATTLES & CO. 
1894 



Copyright, 1891, 

by 

H. CLAY TRUMBULL. 



tf 



ft 









Bequest 

Albert Adsit demons 

Aug. 24, 1938 

(Not available for exchange) 



TO THE MEMORY 

OF 

MY DEAR WIFE 
WHO WAS THE BEST ILLUSTRATION I EVER KNEW 

OF 

A LIFE OF SELF-FORGETFUL FRIENDSHIP 

AND WHO WATCHED WITH SYMPATHETIC INTEREST 

THE PROGRESS OF THESE PAGES 

TO THEIR VERY CLOSE 

BEFORE CLOSING HER EYES TO EARTH 

I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME 

IN 

GRATEFUL AFFECTION 



m 



PREFACE. 



Although Friendship has been a theme of the ages, 
its nature and history have not been treated with any 
degree of fulness by any writer of the ages. Poets and 
philosophers and essayists have recognized the force and 
beauty of friendship as a human sentiment, from the days 
of Homer and Plato and Cicero to those of Bacon and 
Montaigne and Tennyson ; but no one of them has 
attempted a careful analysis of its elements or a compre- 
hensive record of its more important historic illustra- 
tions. Therefore it is that this volume is presented as a 
unique study of a subje6l that deserves greater promi- 
nence than has hitherto been accorded to it. 

It is because of my own indebtedness to friendship 
that I have sought to uplift this sentiment before others, 
in its true worth as an ideal and in its practical value as 
an attainment. In my earlier life I was privileged to 
know the measureless gain of having a friend, and of 
being mentally and spiritually ministered to and inspired 
thereby. In my maturer years I came to experience the 
surpassing advantage of being drawn out of myself in a 

7 



8 Preface. 

reverent and persistent purpose of being unselfishly true 
as a friend, without looking for any recognition or return 
of my devotedness. Finding thus how much I owed to 
the incitements and aspirations and self- conquests of 
friendship, I set myself to discover how much others 
also were indebted to the influence of this transcendent 
sentiment ; and so it was that I was led to track along 
the passing centuries the glowing evidences of friendship 
as the master-passion of humanity. 

This volume must speak for itself, of the measure of 
thoroughness with which its subject is treated, and with 
which the fields that it calls attention to have been 
searched ; yet I may say that its pages represent the work 
of years, and that in its gradual preparation I have had 
the invaluable help of friends, who were illustrating its 
theme while gathering material for its enriching. My 
hope is that what is here said and shown will quicken 
the interest of others in the lofty ideal thus presented, 
and will inspire them to fresh endeavors toward its 
realizing*. 

H. Clay Trumbull. 

Philadelphia, 

September ij, i8qi. 



CONTENTS. 



I. THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF FRIENDSHIP. 

What is Friendship? 13 

Loving, Rather than Being Loved 19 

Wholly Unselfish 27 

Without Envy or Distrust 35 

Transcending All Loves 47 

Changeless in Changes 59 

Of World-Wide Honor 69 

Gainfully Expensive 87 

Limitations and Imitations 93 

Who can be Friends? 105 

II. FRIENDSHIP IN HISTORY. 

Of Surpassing Potency 117 

Influencing Royalty 121 

Promoting Heroism 155 

9 



io Contents. 

Impelling Religious Movements 175 

Advancing Civil Liberty 231 

Affecting Philosophic Thought , 251 

Inspiring Poetry 283 

Transfiguring All Life 381 



Excursus on the New Testament Words for " Love " and 
" Friendship-love." 389 



INDEX 395 



I. 

THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF 
FRIENDSHIP. 



WHAT IS FRIENDSHIP? 




RIENDSHIP," says Cicero, "is the only 
|| point in human affairs concerning the 
benefit of which all, with one voice, 
agree." Jeremy Taylor echoes the 
thought of the classic philosopher, in 
the asseveration, " Friendship is that 
by which the world is most blessed 
and receives most good." Yet Bacon de- 
clares : " There is little friendship in the 
world." According to Shakespeare's mis- 
anthropic Timon of Athens, "friendship's 
full of dregs." And Napoleon, with his 
close knowledge of the human heart, as- 
serts that " friendship is but a name." What is this 
Friendship which is so much to the world, and which is 
so rare in the world ; concerning which all agree yet 
disagree ? What does the very term itself include and 
imply ? 

It is friendship as a personal sentiment, not friendship 

13 



14 What is Friendship? 

as a mutual relation, that must be considered in order 
to an understanding of the term as a term. The primary 
question is not, What is the nature of that state or con- 
dition into which two friends are brought by the fact of 
their being mutual friends ? but it is, What is that senti- 
ment which actuates any person, who is truly a friend, 
toward the person to whom he is a friend ? What is the 
distinguishing characteristic of the feeling or sentiment of 
friendship, on the part of him who is a friend, apart from 
the question of any response to, or recognition of, that 
feeling or sentiment, by him toward whom it goes out ? 

The more familiar a word, the greater its liability to 
vagueness of meaning in popular usage. And the deeper 
the underlying signification of a word, the rarer its recog- 
nition in any other than a superficial sense. The very 
fact that a word is the common possession of all, renders 
various conceptions of it inevitable in various minds ; for 
no one idea, or its symbol, can be seen alike by all, and 
those who look only on the surface will gain no concep- 
tion of a word's profounder sense. " Friendship " is a 
word that encounters these hindrances to its compre- 
hending. It is too familiar to be well understood by all. 
It means too much to have its full sense easily perceived. 
Hence it means much or means little, in its varied use 
among men. 

Our English word " friend," in its Anglo-Saxon form, 
\sfreo7id, — " one who loves." Etymologically the words 
" friend " and " lover " are synonymous, as are the words 
' love " and " friendship." But in common usage " love " 
and " friendship," as also " lover " and " friend," have very 
different measures of meaning, and are supposed to rep- 



What is Friendship? 15 

resent widely different' grades of personal attachment. 
The question is, Wherein consists the true distinction be- 
tween love that is friendship and love that is only love ? 

" Love," as we commonly employ that term when we 
speak of love as distinct from the love that is friendship, 
includes the idea of a reciprocal relation, existing or 
desired, between the one who loves and the one who is 
loved — the idea of possession, or of a possessory interest, 
secured or sought after. Thus, the love of parent and 
child, of brother and sister, of husband and wife, is 
supposed to proceed from and to rest on the intimate 
reciprocal relation existing between the two parties by 
the ties of nature or of conjugal compact; as, again, the 
love of " lovers " is recognized as growing out of, or as 
inevitably accompanied by, a desire for a reciprocal and 
possessory relation, — 

" The end of love is to have two made one, 
In will and in affeftion." 

Self-interest is, in fact:, a large element in ordinary human 
love. 

" Friendship," on the other hand, does not of necessity 
include the idea of any mutual bond, or of any self- 
benefiting relation, either attained or reached after, be- 
tween the one who is a friend and the one to whom he 
is a friend. One's friendship is certainly not limited to 
one's relatives and family connections ; nor yet, beyond 
these, to one who is desired in marriage. In fact, the 
very suggestion of the attachment of friendship is com- 
monly supposed to differentiate the affection which it 
represents from that affection which grows out of, or 



1 6 What is Friendship? 

which tends toward, a possessory relation. " He is only 
a friend," is usually understood as signifying, " He has 
no thought of being a lover ; " and to say of an attach- 
ment, " It is a mere friendship," is much like saying, 
" It is not in any sense real love." Yet few would ven- 
ture to assert that one could not be a friend to a person 
with whom he was linked by family ties, or that real love 
excluded the possibility of real friendship. 

Even when the affections go out toward obje<5ts that 
are other than personal, there is a similar distinction 
between the terms " love " and " friendship," as those 
terms are commonly employed. " Love " is supposed to 
involve some possessory relation with the object of attach- 
ment, while " friendship " does not necessarily imply any 
such relation. A love of country is a love of one's own 
country ; a love which has its basis in what that country 
is to the patriot, or in that country's claim on him as 
its citizen, and in the recognition of benefits which that 
country confers upon him or upon those dear to him. 
But one can be the friend of a country which is not his 
country, which has conferred no benefit on him or on his 
directly, and which he would not even care to call his own 
country. So, again, when one is spoken of as " a lover 
of literature," or " a lover of art," or a a lover of science," 
as over against one who is " a friend of literature," or " a 
friend of art," or " a friend of science," the intimation is 
that the " lover " is in some special relation with the ob- 
ject: of his affection, while the " friend " is not necessarily 
so related with that object. Self-interest is not an essen- 
tial element of the sentiment of friendship ; apart from 
any question of the supposed advantages of the state or 



What is Friendship? ij 

relation into which two persons might be brought by 
becoming mutually friends. 

In languages older than our own, the distinction be- 
tween the love that craves and the love that goes out 
uncravingly is indicated in equivalents of " love " and 
"friendship." Thus the Sanskrit — elder sister in our 
family of tongues — gives for "love," lubh, "covetous- 
ness " or " greed ; " and for " friendship," pri, " unselfish 
love." The Greek has philia for that love which goes 
out " longingly" after its object, "an inclination prompted 
by sense and emotion;" while in the Septuagint and the 
New Testament it has agape y a "love without desire." 
The Latin correspondingly has amo as representing the 
love that turns to another in a spirit of agreement and of 
longing ; but, as an equivalent of agapad, it has diligo 
for the act of " a distinguishing love — without desire," a 
love that selects and rests on the one selected without 
asking any return. 

The common thought is, that " love " and " friend- 
ship " merely differentiate degrees of affection ; and that 
intensity and devotedness are the distinguishing charac- 
teristics of " love " in comparison with " friendship." But 
the place given in both sacred and classic story to the 
illustrations of self-sacrificing friendship proves that no 
lack of depth and fervor limits the force and sway of this 
expression of personal attachment. Greater love hath no 
man than that love which is shown in friendship, at its 
best and truest manifestation. Not in its measure, but 
in its very nature, is an unselfish friendship distinguish- 
able from a love which pivots on a reciprocal relation, 
secured or desired. 

2 



1 8 What is Friendship? 

Friendship is love for another because of what that 
other is in himself, or for that other's own sake, and not 
because of what that other is to the loving one. Friend- 
ship is love with the selfish element eliminated. It is an 
out-going and an on-going affection, wholly and inhe- 
rently disinterested, and in no sense contingent upon any 
reciprocal relation between its giver and its object, nor 
yet upon its return or recognition. Friendship, in short, 
is love apart from love's claim or love's craving. This is 
pure friendship, friendship without alloy. This is friend- 
ship at its truest and best ; and this it is that makes the 
best and truest friendship so rare, so difficult of concep- 
tion, so liable to misconception. This also it is that mul- 
tiplies the specious resemblances of friendship — in hearts 
that are incapable of comprehending its full reality; and 
that gives to those imperfect substitutes for its reality 
such a disappointing power. 

In all holiest and most unselfish love, friendship is the 
purest element of the affection. No love in any relation 
of life can be at its best if the element of friendship be 
lacking. And no love can transcend, in its possibilities 
of noble and ennobling exaltation, a love that is pure 
friendship. 




ip ,uun"" 




LOVING, RATHER THAN BEING LOVED. 




f* N AS MUCH as friendship is loving an- 
other for that other's own sake, and 
not for what that other is to the one 
who loves, friendship by its very nature 
consists in loving, rather than in being 
loved. In other words, friendship consists in being a 
friend, not in having a friend ; in giving one's affection 
unselfishly and unswervingly to another, not in being 
the object of another's affection, or in reciprocating such 
an affection. 

Love, it is true, may beget love; and, again, love is 
likely to be a result, or an outgrowth, of qualities in 
both the loved and the loving one which make affection 
reciprocal : hence friendship is often a mutual affection. 
In every such case, however, each friend is a friend in 
his loving, rather than in his being loved ; and he would 
be just as truly a friend, and his friendship would be just 
as hearty and just as abiding, if he were not loved in 
return, or if his love were unrecognized. 

l 9 



20 Loving, Rather than Being Loved. 

Herein it is that friendship has its distinction from, and 
its superiority over, all other loves. Other loves are 
based upon a love received or desired. Friendship is 
an out-going and unselfish love, without an essential 
thought of the affection's return. Friendship may exist 
conjointly with other loves. Again, the other loves may 
exist — they more commonly do — without the higher ele- 
ment of friendship. But only so far as a love finds its 
chiefest joy and its very life in loving, is it true friend- 
ship's love. 

This distinction is the basis of Plato's teachings con- 
cerning the nature of the highest and purest love. Plato 
would distinguish between the love which is " friendship" 
and the love which is " desire ; " between the love which 
goes out uncravingly, and the love which craves return. 
He even suggests that friendship, as the purest love, is 
dependent for its life on only one of the two parties 
involved ; " that if only one of the two loves the other, 
they are both friends : " one being the friend who loves, 
and the other the friend who is loved ; one the friend 
subjectively, the other the friend objectively. And 
in this sense only it is that it takes two to make a 
friendship. 

Aristotle is yet more explicit on this point. His 
view is, that friendship " consists in loving, rather than 
being loved ; " " that to love seems to be the excellence 
of friends ; and that it is more the part of a friend to 
confer than to receive favors." " Those who wish good to 
their friends for their friends' sake," he says, " are friends 
in the highest degree," — in contrast with those who have 
a selfish interest in desiring their friends' welfare. Even 



Loving, Rather than Being Loved. 2 1 

" the bad will be friends for the sake of the pleasant and 
useful ; . . . but the good will be friends for the friends' 
sake; . . . the latter, therefore, are friends absolutely; 
the former accidentally, and from their resemblance to 
the former ; " for " absolute " friendship is loving unsel- 
fishly, regardless of personal advantage, or of the love's 
return. 

Cicero, discussing this question, concludes that the 
true prompting of every real friendship is a love for one's 
friend, unintermingled with any calculation of the benefits 
to be derived from the friendship ; that, indeed, to be a 
true friend, " is nothing else than to be attached to the 
person whom you love, without any sense of need, with- 
out any advantage being sought; although advantage 
springs up of itself from friendship, even while you have 
not pursued it." 

From the friendship of Lselius with Scipio, Cicero illus- 
trates: " What did Africanus want from me? Nothing 
whatsoever ; nor, indeed, did I want anything from him. 
But I loved him from admiration of his excellence ; he, 
in turn, was perhaps attracted to me from some high 
opinion which he entertained of my character ; and asso- 
ciation fostered our affection. But, although many and 
great advantages ensued, yet it was not from any hope 
of these that the causes of our attachment sprang. . . . 
Thus I judge that friendship is to be sought not in the 
hope of the reward which comes with it, but because its 
whole gain is in the love itself. . . . Where, indeed, can 
there be a place for friendship ; or who can be a friend 
to any one whom he does not love for that one's own 
sake ? And what is loving, — from which the very name 



2 2 Loving, Rather than Being Loved, 

of friendship is derived, — but wishing a certain person to 
enjoy the greatest possible good fortune, even if none of 
it redounds to one's self?" 

That the highest friendship never pivots on its recip- 
rocal return, nor yet on its recognition and acceptance 
by the one loved, is characteristically illustrated by the 
Oriental Soofee poet, Jamee ; who has sometimes been 
called " the Persian Petrarch." Here is Alger's render- 
ing of Jamee's teaching : 

" Sheik Schubli, taken sick, was borne one day 
Unto the hospital. A host the way 
Behind him thronged. ' Who are you ? ' Schubli cried. 
1 We are your friends/ the multitude replied. 
Sheik Schubli threw a stone at them : they fled. 
* Come back, ye false pretenders ! ' then he said ; 
' A friend is one who, ranked among his foes 
By him he loves, and stoned, and beat with blows, 
Will still remain as friendly as before, 
And to his friendship only add the more.' " 

It is because this Oriental conception of the unfailing 
unselfishness of an out-going and an on-going affection, 
as the basis of every true friendship, — a conception which 
is primitive in the very idea of true friendship, — does not 
always prevail in the Western mind, that friendship is so 
often spoken of as dependent for its life on reciprocity. 
La Bruyere, for example, who writes admirably on some 
phases of friendship, falls sadly short of the true standard, 
in saying : " When we have done all that we can for cer- 
tain people in order to secure their friendship, and we find 
that we have been unsuccessful, there is still one resource 
left to us, which is — not to do anything more." Ay ! 



Loving, Rather than Being Loved. 23 

and there is yet another and a better resource left to us, 
which is — to keep on doing. That is not real friendship 
which ceases its out-going and its on-flow when it finds 
that no return of its affection is a possibility or a hope. 

Robert Browning has the higher conception, in his 
contrast of " Life in a Love " with " Love in a Life j " for 
friendship at its truest is simply life in a love — life in 
unfailing and unselfish love : 

" Escape me ? 
Never — 
Beloved ! 
While I am I, and you are you, 

So long as the world contains us both, 
Me the loving, and you the loth, — 
While the one eludes, must the other pursue." 

Emerson grew to the fuller appreciation of this truth 
as he thought and felt more of the truest power of the 
truest friendship. " It has seemed to me lately," he wrote, 
" more possible than I knew to carry a friendship greatly 
on one side without due correspondence on the other. 
Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the re- 
ceiver is not capacious ? It never troubles the sun that 
some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, 
and only a small part on the reflecliing planet. ... It is 
thought a disgrace to love unrequited ; but the great will 
see that true love cannot be unrequited." 

" Love without end hath no end " is a Spanish proverb, 
cited by George Herbert approvingly ; and this is only 
another way of saying that a love which is not dependent 
on any attaining is a ceaseless love ; it can never end in 
fruition. The proverb seems, indeed, to be a condensa- 



24 Loving, Rather than Being Loved. 

tion of the Talmudic maxim (in Pirqe Aboth) : "All 
love which depends on some thing, when the thing ceases 
the love ceases ; but such love as does not depend on 
anything, ceases not forever." Francis Quarles seems 
to have had this maxim in mind when he wrote : " Con- 
vey thy love to thy friend, as an arrow to the mark, to 
stick there ; not as a ball against the wall to rebound 
back to thee. That friendship will not continue to the 
end that is begun for an end." And so it is that true 
friendship is deathless, through being a love that is endless. 

The very joy of friendship is found in loving, not in 
being loved. Epicurus is cited by Plutarch as saying, 
concerning this matter of friendship, " It is more pleasant 
to do good than to receive good ; " and La Rochefou- 
cauld, the French Epicurean, could see that in all the 
sphere of the affections the larger gain and the larger joy 
are from loving, rather than from being loved. " The 
pleasure of loving is to love," he says ; " and we are much 
happier in the passion we feel, than in that we excite." 
It is in the light of this characteristic of friendship that 
La Rochefoucauld exclaims : " Rare as true love is, it 
is less rare than true friendship." 

The gentle-spirited Whittier brings out this truth in 
its richer signifyings, in his words : 

" Love is sweet in any guise ; 
But its best is sacrifice. 

"He who giving does not crave, 
Likest is to Him who gave 
Life itself the loved to save." 

It is a woman's readier apprehension of the supremacy 



Loving, Rather than Being Loved. 2 5 

of a self-abnegating love, that shows itself in the words 

of Helen Hunt: 

" When love is strong, 
It never tarries to take heed, 
Or know if its return exceed 
Its gift ; in its sweet haste no greed, 
No strifes belong. 

" It hardly asks 
If it be loved at all ; to take 
So barren seems, when it can make 
Such bliss, for the beloved's sake, 
Of bitter tasks." 

In similar womanly perception of the spirit of true friend- 
ship it is that George Eliot affirms : 

"So if I live or die to serve my friend, 
'Tis for my love, — 'tis for my friend alone, 
And not for any rate that friendship bears 
In heaven or in earth." 

This is the Bible view of friendship, both in the Old 
Testament and in the New. The Divine pattern of love 
is a love that loves without any condition of love returned, 
and that consists in loving, rather than in being loved. 
" The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose 
you, because ye were more in number than any people; 
for ye were the fewest of all people ; but because the Lord 
loved you," says Moses to Israel. It was not because 
of your lovableness, but because of God's lovingness, 
that God loved you ; and his love consists in loving. 
" And he will love thee," adds Moses. He will keep on 
loving you, because he is so loving toward you whom 
he does love. 



26 Loving, Rather than Being Loved. 

" Ye did not choose me, but I chose you," says Jesus 
to those whom he calls his friends. " Herein is love," — 
herein is Divine love, Divine friendship, says the disciple 
whom Jesus loved, — " not that we loved God, but that 
he loved us ; " this love consists in God's loving us, rather 
than in our loving God ; for the truest, highest, purest, 
love which is friendship, or which friendship is — whether 
it be Divine love or friendship or human love or friend- 
ship — always consists in loving, rather than in being 
loved. 

Only he who is unwilling to love without being loved, 
is likely to feel that there is no such thing as friendship 
in the world. 





WHOLLY UNSELFISH. 



n 




RUE friendship being love without compact 
or condition, true friendship never pivots 
on an equivalent return of service or of 
affection. Its whole sweep is away from 
self and toward the loved one. Its desire 
is for the friend's welfare; its joy is in the friend's pros- 
perity ; its sorrows and trials are in the friend's misfor- 
tunes and griefs ; its pride is in the friend's attainments 
and successes ; its constant purpose is of doing and 
enduring for the friend ; and even its unrest, if unrest 
there be, is because of its never-satisfied endeavor to 
advantage and benefit the friend. This is ideal friend- 
ship ; this is true friendship in actual attainment. 

Take, for example, that most beautiful of all illustra- 
tive friendships, the friendship of Jonathan for David, in 
the Bible narrative, — it was grandly, gloriously unselfish. 
Jonathan was a prince of the royal house, heir-apparent 
to the throne of a kingdom. He was himself a hero of 
high achievement, with a foremost place in the people's 

V 



28 Wholly Unselfish. 

love and honor. His first glimpse of David was in the 
light of a successful rival. The stripling shepherd stood 
the new hero of the hour, brought into the presence of 
the king while the nation's praises were ringing in his 
ears because of the wonderful deliverance wrought by his 
faith-filled daring. Looking then upon him in his love- 
liness o f person and of character, Jonathan saw with pro- 
phetic ken the sure future of David as the coming king 
of Israel, as the one in whose glowing light his own star 
of earthly hope must pale. But in the first flush of that 
discovery there was no shade of envy, nor yet the faintest 
trace of regret, in the more than royal heart of Jonathan. 
Joy in the recognition of so noble and lovable a char- 
acter as David's, filled the whole being of the nobler and 
yet more lovable Jonathan. " And it came to pass, when 
he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul 
of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jona- 
than loved him as his own soul." And from that time 
onward every heart-throb of Jonathan's friendship for 
David was a heart-throb of unselfish devotedness to him 
to whom he was a friend. What wonder that David 
pronounced upon that friendship as "passing the love of 
women ; " passing all craving love, all selfish desire ! 

Similarly, the unselfish devotedness of Ruth to Naomi 
gave her friendship a place in the sacred story, and marked 
the contrast of her love with Orpah's. The associations 
of a lifetime, the drawings of personal interest, of kin- 
dred, of patriotism, and of religion, combined for the 
attaching of the widowed daughters-in-law to Moab and 
its dwellers. Only a sacred friendship, a friendship which 
had its deepest roots in no obligations of blood or of 



Wholly Unselfish. 29 

marriage, could offer effectual resistance to these multi- 
plied attractions, in such an hour as that when Naomi 
and Ruth and Orpah wept together in the thought of 
their final parting, on the boundary banks of the Jordan. 
Orpah loved her mother-in-law, and " kissed her " ten- 
derly ; but Ruth had friendship for her mother-in-law, 
and "clave unto her " — as friendship by its nature cleaves. 
And the unselfish friendship of Ruth for Naomi spoke 
out then in that matchless asseveration of unswerving 
fidelity, which thrills through the ages, in its tremulous 
tenderness of womanly affection : 

*' Intreat me not to leave thee, 
And to return from following after thee : 
For whither thou goest, I will go ; 
And where thou lodgest, I will lodge : 
Thy people shall be my people, 
And thy God my God : 
Where thou diest, will I die, 
And there will I be buried : 
The Lord do so to me, and more also, 
If aught but death part thee and me." 

The very name " Ruth " means, in the Hebrew, " A 
friend " (in its abstract form, "Friendship"); as if the 
sacred story would make this record of devotedness an 
illustration of true friendship. The name may, indeed, 
have been given to this faithful friend after her beautiful 
exhibit of its meaning, it being her new name in Israel. 
It was through her exhibit of friendship that Ruth won 
a place in the ancestral line of the Friend of friends, in 
his human descent from Abraham the friend of God. 

Montaigne cites a story out of classic lore, in evidence 



30 Wholly Unselfish. 

of this basal truth. " Endamidas, a Corinthian, had two 
friends, Charixenus a Sicyonian, and Aretheus a Corin- 
thian. Endamidas coming to die, being poor and his 
two friends being rich, he made his will after this manner : 
' I bequeath to Aretheus the maintenance of my mother, 
to support and provide for her in her old age ; and to 
Charixenus I bequeath the care of providing for my 
daughter in marriage, and of giving her as good a mar- 
riage portion as he is able. And in case one of these 
executors chance to die I hereby substitute the survivor 
in his place.' They who first saw this will made them- 
selves merry at the contents ; but the executors, being 
made acquainted with it, accepted the legacies with great 
satisfaction ; and one of them, Charixenus, dying within 
a few days thereafter, the survivor Aretheus, having by 
that means the charge of both devolved solely on him- 
self, nourished that old woman with great care and tender- 
ness ; and of five talents he had in estate he gave two and 
a half in marriage with an only daughter of his own, and 
two and a half in marriage with the daughter of Endami- 
das ; and in one and the same day he solemnized the 
nuptials of the two maidens." 

In comment on this story, Montaigne adds that " En- 
damidas as a bounty and a favor here bequeaths to his 
friends a legacy of employing themselves in his necessity. 
He leaves them heirs to this liberality of his, which con- 
sists in giving them the opportunity of conferring a benefit 
upon him ; and doubtless the force of friendship is more 
eminently apparent in this ac~l of his than in that of Are- 
theus." In other words, Aretheus was here given the 
opportunity of evidencing as a friend that unselfishness 



Wholly Unselfish, 31 

which is the soul of friendship ; and Endamidas simply 
acted on the conviction that because Aretheus and Cha- 
rixenus were his friends, therefore their love for him was 
without selfishness, and they would rejoice in the privi- 
lege of showing it to be so. 

Yet because friendship may thus be rested on as always 
essentially unselfish, it does not follow that a friend will 
be willing to put friendship to any such test unnecessarily. 
The unselfishness of his friendship will forbid that. There- 
fore it is that a considerate friend is prompter to carry his 
friend's sorrow, than to carry his sorrows to his friend. 
" It would seem," says Aristotle, " that we ought to invite 
friends to share our prosperity with alacrity ; . . . but to 
share our adversity, we should invite them with reluc- 
tance." And Sir Thomas Browne, who was ever ready to 
put his friend's welfare before his own, said, similarly : 
" Now with my friend I desire not to share or to partici- 
pate, but to engross, his sorrows." His friend's joys he 
would share, and his joys he would share with his friend ; 
but his sorrows he would carry by himself, and his friend's 
sorrows he would carry also, if he might. Whether, 
indeed, one confides his griefs to his friend or conceals 
his griefs from his friend, he is moved by the thought of 
what will please or advantage his friend, rather than of 
what will please or advantage himself. 

Charles Kingsley tells the story, as a veritable fact, 
of two hermit-monks who had lived together in closest 
friendship for years in the same cave, with never a thought 
of envy or selfish rivalry in the mind of either. At last 
it occurred to them to try the experiment of a quarrel, 
after the common fashion of the outside world. " But 



32 Wholly Unselfish, 

how shall we quarrel ? " asked one. " Oh ! " said the 
other, " we can take this brick, and put it between us ; 
and each can claim it. Then we'll quarrel over it." And 
that was agreed on as the plan. " This brick is mine," 
said the one. " I hope it is mine," said the other gently. 
" Well, if it is yours, take it," said the other, who could 
never hear his friend express a wish for a thing without 
having a desire to secure it to him accordingly. So that 
quarrel was a failure — because the friendship was not. 

Even in the partial light which shone on immortality 
in the days of Cicero the question was discussed, whether 
it was consistent with the truest friendship for one to 
bewail the loss of his friend by death, since death was a 
gain to the friend taken away. " Now to be above meas- 
ure distressed at one's own troubles, is characteristic of 
the man who loves not his friend but himself," said Cicero, 
in arguing against a selfish grief over the death of a friend. 
And this same view of a friend's duty of self-forgetfulness 
is in the mind of Goethe, when he says to his friend : 

" Death 'tis to part ; 
'Tis twofold death 
To part not hoping 
Ever to meet again. 

" Thou wouldst rejoice to leave 
This hated land behind, 
Wert thou not chained to me 
With friendship's flowery chains. 

" Burst them ! I'll not repine. 
No noble friend 
Would stay his fellow-captive, 
If means of flight appear. 



Wholly Unselfish. 33 

" The remembrance 
Of his dear friend's freedom 
Gives him freedom — 
In his dungeon." 

Shakespeare goes one step farther in illustration of the 
self-abnegation which is in the highest affection, in that 
series of Sonnets which breathes throughout the senti- 
ment of an absorbing friendship. He would not even be 
remembered after his death, if memory would be a grief 
to his surviving friend : — 

" No longer mourn for me when I am dead 
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell 
Give warning to the world that I am fled 
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell : 
Nay, if you read this line, remember not 
The hand that writ it ; for I love you so 
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot 
If thinking on me then should cause you woe." 

He who is capable of being a friend will, because 

he is a friend, find a joy in serving that he could never 

find in being served. Out-going is always preferable 

to in-coming, in friendship's thought. Thus it is with 

Browning's Jules the artist, in " Pippa Passes," when he 

considers whether or not he shall become the friend of 

the untutored Greek girl Phene. Because he can do for 

her, not because he can hope to receive from her, he 

decides to be her friend. Therefore it is that he hears 

God's voice summoning him to this grandly unselfish 

service of friendship : — 

" If whoever loves 
Must be, in some sort, god or worshiper, 
The blessing or the blest one, queen or page, 

3 



34 Wholly Unselfish. 

Why should we always choose the page's part ? 
Here is a woman with utter need of me, — 
I find myself queen here, it seems ! 

How strange ! 
Look at the woman here with the new soul, 
Like my own Psyche, — fresh upon her lips 
Alit, the visionary butterfly, 
Waiting my word to enter and make bright, 
Or flutter off and leave all blank as first. 
This body had no soul before, but slept 
Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free 
From taint or foul with stain, as outward things 
Fastened their image on its passiveness : 
Now it will wake, feel, live — or die again ! 
Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff, 
Be Art — and further, to evoke a soul 
From form, be nothing ? This new soul is mine! " 

Nor is this high standard of unselfish personal friend- 
ship one which is never practically attained in this mat- 
ter-of-fact world of ours. Friends have lived for each 
other. Friends have died for each other. Friends have 
endured far more than death in each other's behalf. 
Friends have given up home, and kindred, and property, 
and hope of gain, and even good name, at the call of 
friendship. And wherever there is a real friendship to- 
day there is a readiness to do and to endure and to yield 
to the uttermost. 




WITHOUT ENVY OR DISTRUST. 



)3 - fc£ t »■ 



RIENDSHIP being in its very nature an 
unselfish love, all that savors of selfish- 
ness is necessarily excluded from its scope. 
It being an out-going and an on-going 
love for one who is prized for his own 
sake, every added proof that the one loved is all that 
the loving one has seen him to be, or more, gives joy 
of heart, and not disturbance of mind, to him who is his 
friend. Neither envy nor distrust — both of which have 
their center in self-interest — can have any play against 
one who is loved unselfishly. 

He who is loved as a friend for his own sake, will con- 
tinue to be thus loved while he is himself and his friend 
is his friend's self. Thus Montaigne accounts for his love 
for his friend by saying, " If a man should importune me 
to give a reason why I loved my friend, I find it could 
not otherwise be expressed than by the answer, ' Because 
he was he ; because I was I.' " And this is in full accord 
with Aristotle's declaration that friendship is love for 

35 



36 Without Envy or Distrust. 



another " so far forth as the person loved exists," and 
not "so far forth. as he is useful or pleasant." 

Yet no man could be drawn away from himself in 
devoted love for another unless, for some reason and in 
some light, that other were looked up to as worthy of a 
reverent regard. Unselfishness looks upward as well as 
outward, and an unselfish love is sure to have a reverent 
upward look in the contemplation of its object. This is 
a recognized truth of the ages. When Wan Chang came 
to Mencius, a Chinese sage contemporary with Plato and 
Aristotle, asking the question, " What feeling of the mind 
is expressed in the gifts of friendship ? " Mencius re- 
plied, " The feeling of reverence." Our Emerson, echoing 
many a thought of the Oriental philosophers, declares : 
" Friendship demands a religious treatment ; . . . rever- 
ence is a great part of it." Austin Phelps, ever keen in 
his spiritual perceptions, points out the fact that " the 
purest and most lasting human friendships are permeated 
with an element of reverence." Sir John Taylor Cole- 
ridge, speaking of his love for his life -long friend, Keble, 
says that this " love was always sanctified as it were 
by reverence, — reverence that did not make the love 
less tender, and love that did but add intensity to the 
reverence." And so it is, in a measure, in every true 
friendship. 

Various reasons may operate to give this feeling of 
reverence for one who is loved because he is what he is, 
as seen by him who loves him ; but the effect of the rea- 
sons is practically the same in all cases. A man may be 
reverenced for the lofty ideal he holds before the one who 
loves him ; or for the loftier ideal toward which he is 



Without Envy or Distrust. 37 

manifestly striving ; or for the undeveloped possibilities 
which are seen in him, or for him, by him who is his 
friend. He may be looked up to for what he is, or for 
what he desires to be, or for what he might become ; 
whatever the cause may be, the effect is much the same 
in the mind of the up-looker. 

And here is a reason why we can never be jealous of one 
to whom we are a friend, although we are prone to be jeal- 
ous for him. We love him and we look up to him for his 
own sake, and not for our sake ; for what there is in him, 
or for what there is for him, and not for what he is toward 
us or in our behalf. We are glad when he shows him- 
self at his best ; and we are never troubled that his best 
outshines our best, even though we should be troubled 
if he failed to shine as he might, while we surpassed him. 
Thus La Bruyere suggests, discriminatingly, that " in 
friendship we see only those faults which may be preju- 
dicial to our friends ; while in love we discern no faults 
but those by which we ourselves suffer." 

This being so, it is evident that the faintest reluctance 
on our part to see the one to whom we claim to be a 
friend transcend or eclipse us in our sphere of influence 
or action, is so far a proof that our claim of friendship is 
a false one. " Friendship immediately banishes envy 
under all its disguises," says a fellow-worker of Addison 
in the Spectator. " A man who can once doubt whether 
he should rejoice in his friend's being happier than him- 
self, may depend upon it that he is an utter stranger to 
this virtue." 

If Jonathan had envied David when he saw that David 
was to have the throne which Jonathan was yielding 



38 Without Envy or Distrust. 

without the credit of yielding, it would have evidenced 
a lack of surpassing friendship for David in the heart of 
Jonathan. But because Jonathan loved David as his own 
soul, loved him with a self-forgetful friendship, envy of 
David could find no place in the royal and loyal heart 
of Jonathan. 

It was because John the Baptist was the friend of Jesus 
that John, at the very summit of his personal renown 
and of his commanding popular influence, could say, with- 
out a twinge of envious feeling, concerning him of whom 
he was the friend : " In the midst of you standeth one 
whom ye know not, even he that cometh after me, the 
latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to unloose." And 
when, a little later, it was suggested to John that he was 
being transcended by Jesus, his glad answer was : " He 
that hath the bride is the bridegroom : but the friend 
of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, re- 
joiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This 
my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I 
must decrease." 

Nor is this unenvious recognition of a friend's eclipsing 
power an attainment of characters in the Bible story only. 
It inheres in the very conception of the truest friendship 
everywhere. " I must feel pride in my friend's accom- 
plishments as if they were mine, and a property in his 
virtues," says Emerson for us all. " I feel as warmly, 
when he is praised, as the lover when he hears applause 
of his engaged maiden." 

Thus it is that Tennyson testifies of his unenvious pride 
in Arthur Hallam's recognized supremacy in the sphere 
of their common labors : 



Without Envy or Distrust. 39 

*- -y ■ ■ — ' 

" On thee the loyal -hearted hung, 

The proud was half disarmed of pride, 
Nor cared the serpent at thy side 
To flicker with his double tongue. 

" The stern were mild when thou wert by, 
The flippant put himself to school 
And heard thee, and the brazen fool 
Was softened, and he knew not why. 

" While I, thy nearest, sat apart, 

And felt thy triumph was as mine ; 
And loved them more that they were thine, 
The graceful tact, the Christian art ; 

" Nor mine the sweetness or the skill, 
But mine the love that will not tire, 
And, born of love, the vague desire 
That spurs an imitative will." 

Because friendship always includes a reverent admira- 
tion of a friend's ideal, — the ideal seen in the friend, seen 
by the friend, or seen for the friend, — therefore it follows 
that every added indication of that ideal's realizing is 
added cause for rejoicing on the part of him who loves 
his friend as the embodiment of that ideal. Unless, in- 
deed, the loved one had been looked up to for his own 
sake, as that ideal's embodiment, he could not have been 
loved as he is by him who claims to be his friend; hence 
envy is forestalled by the very friendship's existence ; for 
envy is a selfish regret that another is in advance of 
us, while friendship is an unselfish affection for another 
because he is in advance of us — or ought to be, as we 
see it. 

Nor, again, is distrust of a friend compatible with true 



4-0 Without Envy or Distrust. 

friendship, any more than is envy. Distrust of another 
is the result of a watchful interest in one's own welfare ; 
it is, in fact, a fear that one is to be a loser from his rela- 
tions to another; but friendship being in its very nature 
a forgetfulness of self in love for another, it carries with 
it supremacy of interest in the loved one and his welfare. 
How can a man be afraid for himself when he has for- 
gotten himself? "There is no fear in love: but perfect 
love casteth out fear," says the loved and loving friend 
of Jesus. "He that feareth is not made perfect in love." 
He who distrusts is not yet a true friend. 

In pagan wisdom, as well as in inspired Christianity, 
the duty of trusting a friend unfailingly has found full 
recognition. Among the maxims of Publius Syrus we 
read : " The one bond of friendship is confidence ; " " So 
trust your friend that there be not place for enmity;" 
" He who fears his friend gives reason why his friend 
should fear him;" " He who fears his friend knows not 
the meaning of the name." 

It is not that love for a friend will blind one to that 
friend's lack of attainments and capabilities, or to the 
possibility of his coming short of his ideal. But it is 
that friendship's love will make it impossible to question 
the fact that the friend is always himself, or to have 
any such fear of his action as comes from the selfish 
considering of possible consequences to the loving one 
through his being the other's friend unswervingly. 
" Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him," is ever the 
loving cry of a child of God whose love for his Father 
is for what that Father is in himself, rather than for what 
that Father is to his loving child. " Perfect love " — that 



Without Envy or Distrust. 41 

unalloyed love that friendship is — is never less trustful 
than this. 

In friendship, in real friendship, " we walk by faith, not 
by sight ; " and faith is better than sight. A heart that 
trusts is a safer guide than eyes that see. In the highest 
and holiest friendship it is divinely declared: "Blessed 
are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." 
Conversely, in the best and truest human friendships 
there is a blessing to him who will not believe his own 
eyes against the one whom he loves. 

Ebers, in his historical romances, has given illustrations 
of this unwavering trust, from the social life of the ancient 
Egyptians. In his " Uarda," when Nefert is told posi- 
tively that Mena, her husband, has proved untrue to her, 
she repels indignantly the suggestion, and her answer is : 
"If . . . these eyes saw it, — ay, over and over again, — 
. . . not for one instant would I doubt his truth ; " and 
the record shows that Nefert's trust in Mena never 
wavered, nor was ever misplaced. 

Again, in his " Serapis," Ebers makes Constantine re- 
proach Gorgo, who, having professed to love him, was 
ready to distrust him because of what she had heard from 
others. " Even if your own eyes had seen me, you ought 
not to have believed them," he said in honest indignation. 
And what is thus pictured in the ideal life of the old 
Egyptians is found as a reality wherever there is a true 
and consistent friendship to-day. Only by being disloyal 
as a friend can one have in question the loyalty of a 
friend to that ideal for which, in fact, he is loved and 
honored as a friend. 

In the Icelandic sagas there is a story of one Haus- 



42 Without E?ivy or Distrust. 

kuld, who was a true friend to the sons of one Njal. 
When evil-minded men came to warn Hauskuld against 
his friends, his loyal rejoinder was : " Spare thy words : 
for I have no mind to hear slanders against Njal's sons. 
They are my friends, and I would rather die at their 
hands than doubt them. But thou art all the worse man, 
in my esteem, for speaking thus concerning them." 

From Plutarch we learn that Alexander the Great was 
great enough, with all his faults, to know the scope and 
to feel the sway of true friendship. Alexander lay sick 
in Cilicia during one of his earlier campaigns for Asiatic 
conquest. The fate of the world seemed to pivot on his 
recovery, and because of the magnitude of the risk in- 
volved, and of the suspicions of intrigue on every side, the 
Macedonian physicians hesitated to assume the responsi- 
bility of his treatment. But Philip, an Acarnanian phy- 
sician, loved Alexander, and was loved by him. " He 
was his true friend," says Plutarch, and Alexander trusted 
him accordingly. Philip would care for Alexander, at 
every risk to himself. He came to the king's bedside 
with his loving counsel. Meantime Parmenio, a jealous 
admirer of Alexander, had written from the camp, saying 
that the physician, Philip, had been bribed by Darius to 
poison Alexander, and warning Alexander to beware of 
him. Alexander, having read Parmenio's letter, showed 
it to no one, but put it under his pillow. When Philip 
proffered the medicine he had prepared, Alexander looked 
up into the face of his friend " with a cheerful expression 
of trust and kindly feeling," and drained the cup without 
a question. Then, taking the letter of warning from under 
his pillow, he handed it to Philip, that he might read it, 



Without Envy or Distrust. 43 

and so learn how a friend could trust. Largeness of soul 
like Alexander's will show itself in such trust in a friend 
as Alexander showed. j 

It is in the very nature of friendship to fix its thought 
on that which is lovable in the one loved as a friend, 
and thereby to lose thought of that which is unlovable. 
Friendship makes so much of that in a friend which is 
worthy of confidence, that it will not have in mind those 
traits or actions of his which might tend to provoke dis- 
trust of him. One of the early disciples of Confucius, 
describing the characteristics of real friends, says : " They 
are ever ready to forget one's ill treatment of them; and, 
whether near or at a distance, they neither suspect nor 
doubt one." In one of the sacred books of the Hindoos 
it is declared : " He is not a friend who always eagerly 
suspects a breach, and looks out for faults." 

It is Manuel, an old-time Castilian prince, who asserts 
indignantly : 

" He who would counsel your reserve to friends 
Has purpose of betraying you unseen." 

Even the cynical La Rochefoucauld — whose chief 
thought, as Voltaire tells us, is that self-love is the 
spring of all our actions and determinations — insists that 
distrust has no part or place in friendship. " It is more 
dishonorable," he says, "to distrust a friend than to be 
deceived by him." It is contrary to the very nature of 
true friendship to be reckoning on the possibility of 
danger in trusting a friend absolutely. Thus Emerson, 
referring to the gain of loving on in a friendship where 
one's love is not reciprocated adds, as if self-reproach- 



44 Without Envy or Distrust. 

fully : " Yet these things may hardly be said without a 
sort of treachery to the relation. The essence of friend- 
ship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust It 
must not surmise or provide for infirmity." 

Old Chaucer, in describing the various phases of love, 
emphasizes this unswerving trust in a friend as the joy- 
ous pre-eminence of the love which is friendship : 

" Love of freendshippe also ther is, 
Which makith no man done amys, 
Of wille knytt bitwixe two, 
That wole not breke for wele ne woo ; 
Which long is likly to contune, 1 
Whanne wille and goodis be in comune, 
Grounded by Goddis ordinaunce, 
Hoole withoute discordaunce ; 
With hem holdyng comunte 2 
Of alle her goode in charite, 
That ther be noon excepcioun, 
Thurgh chaungyng of entencioun, 
That eche helpe other at her neede, 
And wisely hele 3 bothe word and dede; 
Trewe of menyng, devoide of slouthe, 
For witt is nought withoute trouthe ; 
So that the ton 4 dar alle his thought 
Seyn to his freend, and spare nought, 
As to hym-silf without dredyng 
To be discovered by wreying. 5 
For glad is that conjunccioun, 
Whanne ther is noon susspecioun 
[That] they wolde [evere false] prove, 
That trewe and parfit weren in love." 

And many a writer, earlier and later, has given point 
to the truth that the only time when a friend can prop- 

1 Continue. 2 Community. 3 Hide. 4 The one. 5 Betraying. 



Without Envy or Distrust. 45 

erly be distrusted is before he is a friend. Thus Young 
counsels : 

" Deliberate on all things with thy friend. 
But, since friends grow not thick on every bough, 
Nor every friend unrotten at the core ; 
First, on thy friend, deliberate with thyself; 
Pause, ponder, sift ; not eager in the choice, 
Nor jealous of the chosen; fixing, fix. 
Judge before friendship, theii confide till death" 

And this would seem to be but a paraphrase of Quarles : 
" Deliberate long before thou consecrate a friend; and 
when thy impartial judgment concludes him worthy of 
thy bosom, receive him joyfully, and entertain him 
wisely; impart thy secrets boldly, and mingle thy 
thoughts with his ; he is thy very self, and use him so. 
If thou firmly thinkest him faithful, thou makest him so." 
Indeed, both of these statements are but elaborations of 
the words of Seneca the wise : " After friendship it is 
confidence; before friendship it is judgment." Shake- 
speare has the same idea in the advice of Polonius to 
Laertes, when that worldly-wise observer of sound max- 
ims counsels his departing son : 

" The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel." 

And practical Benjamin Franklin suggests again the 
thought in his maxim : " Be slow in choosing a friend, 
slower in changing." 

Cicero protested against the suggestion out of a former 
generation — a suggestion ascribed to Bias, one of the 
wise men of Greece — that " a man ought so to love as if 
one day he would come to hate." Cicero was sure that 



4.6 Without Envy or Distrust. 

" no speech could be found more hostile to friendship 
than this;" and his responding question was: "In what 
manner can any one be a friend to him to whom he 
thinks he may possibly become an enemy ? " 

How can friendship find a place for distrust ? An 
out-going limitless love forbids and bars an incoming 
limiting doubt. The only unrest of a love that rests in 
the truth of one's truer other self, is the ceaseless craving 
to Jove more, and to be more true in loving. 

" The deepest hunger of a faithful heart 
Is faithfulness." 



?L*-fc^<*. 





TRANSCENDING ALL LOVES. 




NE need not go outside of the Bible record 
for proof that friendship's love has a 
place above all other loves ; although the 
concurrent testimony of the ages, earlier 
and later than that record, is to the same 
effect. A truth like this could hardly fail of recognition 
in the Book of books. 

When Moses is warning the children of Israel of the 
temptations to idolatry which will beset them in the land 
of Canaan, he names the possible tempters to evil in the 
order of their relative importance, and to a " friend " he 
assigns the place highest of all. " If thy brother, the son 
of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife 
of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own life % 
entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other 
gods ; . . . thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken 
unto him." And everything in the Old Testament his- 
tory and teachings would go to show that this was the 
true climax of affections from the earliest ages of the 

47 



48 Transcending All Loves. 

world — friendship transcending all loves ; which is only 
another way of saying that a love which is absolutely and 
devotedly unselfish is superior to a love which has in it 
any measure or taint of self-interest. 

The loves competing with friendship are conjugal love 
and kinship love. David bore witness to a friend's love 
as " passing the love of women ; " and Solomon affirmed 
unhesitatingly, " There is a friend that sticketh closer 
than a brother." 

It is a pregnant fact that in all the Old Testament story 
only one human being is ever referred to as a "friend" 
of God. The Lord is referred to as " Father " of all, and 
as " Husband" of his entire people; but only Abraham 
is designated as the Lord's "friend." Once, indeed, in 
our English version, it is mentioned that " the Lord spake 
unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his 
friend ; " but this is clearly an allusion to the manner of 
the intercourse on that occasion between Moses and the 
Lord ; not a reference to the peculiar relation in which 
they two stood to each other. In fact, the Hebrew word 
here translated " friend " has no such suggestion of a 
loving intimacy as the word which is applied to Abra- 
ham's relation to God : it is a word more commonly 
rendered "neighbor," From first to last it is "Moses 
my servant," of whom the Lord speaks. It is "Abraham, 
my friend " — and only Abraham. 

So clearly was the uniqueness of this relation of Abra- 
ham with the Lord recognized in the Oriental mind, that, 
after twenty centuries had gone by, the Apostle James 
pointed back to that uplifting of the Father of the Faith- 
ful, saying : " Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned 



Transcending All Loves. 49 

unto him for righteousness ; and he was called the friend 
of God." And now, after wellnigh twenty centuries more, 
that one patriarch is still known in all the East — known 
by Jew, Muhammadan, and Christian — as " Ibraheem el- 
Khaleel," "Abraham the friend." 

True it is that, under the new dispensation, when Jesus 
would honor above all precedent the disciples who had 
trusted him unswervingly, he said, as he was parting with 
them for a season : " No longer do I call you servants : 
. . . but I have called you friends!' But this also was 
a recognition of the truth that no other relation can be 
nearer and dearer than friendship; hence the love which 
transcends all loves was fittingly given that name. Friend- 
ship is the love of loves, by the Bible standard. 

It can hardly be supposed that it is of carelessness, or 
without intention, that in both the Old Testament and 
the New a distinction is repeatedly marked between the 
mere marriage tie and the highest attainment of friend- 
ship; whereby the former is counted of the flesh — the 
life here in the flesh; while the later is counted of the 
soul — the very life itself. It is Moses who records the in- 
stitution of marriage, saying of the twain thereby made 
one, " Therefore shall a man leave his father and his 
mother, and shall cleave unto his wife : and they shall be 
one flesh." Moses again it is who describes "a friend" 
as in a relation to another closer and more vital than 
even that of " one flesh " — " thy friend which is as thine 
own life" — literally, "thine own self." It is Paul who 
points back to this original institution of marriage as a 
Divine declaration that "the twain shall become one 
flesh," and who counsels that "even so ought husbands 



50 Transcending All Loves. 

to love their own wives as their own bodies." Paul also 
it is who, referring to his friend and his child in the faith, 
Onesimus, speaks of him as " my very heart," and again 
as " myself." Is there no meaning in these inspired 
distinctions ? 

It is not that the tie of marriage or the ties of blood 
ought, in any case, to exist without the sentiment of 
friendship ; but it is that those ties do not in and of 
themselves secure such an interunion of very soul as is 
possible between those who are only friends. Friend- 
ship without conjugal or kinship love is a profounder and 
more sacred affection than conjugal or kinship love with- 
out friendship. He who has a duty of conjugal love or 
of kinship love has a duty also of friendship's love in the 
same direction. Without this love the other loves can 
never reach their highest and holiest possibilities, or be 
at their God-intended completion. 

Jesus Christ and his church are, it is true, represented 
in the relation of a bridegroom to a bride; but he and 
his chosen disciples are also represented as united in 
the yet more intimate and enduring relation of "friends." 
The church, as a church, is his "body;" the personal 
believers in him are sharers of his very "life." "In the 
resurrection," says Jesus, "they neither marry nor are 
given in marriage." But in his farewell discourse to his 
disciples, as his "friends," Jesus says: "I come again, 
and will receive you unto myself; that where I am there 
ye may be also." The marriage tie by itself is of the life 
that is here, in the flesh. The tie of friendship, with 
marriage or apart from it, is of the life that is both here 
and hereafter. This is the distinction recognized by the 



Transcending All Loves. 51 

keen-witted Frenchman, Joseph Roux, when he defines 
"love" as "two souls and one flesh," and "friendship" 
as "two bodies and one soul." Friendship has been 
called "the marriage of souls;" and that would seem 
to be the light in which the Bible presents it. Those 
who are united in marriage ought to be united also in 
friendship; but unless marriage includes this union of 
souls, marriage must end with the life that is. 

Outside of the Bible text there is abundant evidence 
that the richest experiences of the human heart, the 
world over, have tended to give the first place, and the 
best, to a love without any admixture of possible self- 
interest, to a friendship closer than a tie of blood, and 
passing the love of women. 

In the sacred books of the Hindoos the climax of 
crimes is declared to be a sin against one's friend. A 
declaration in the Mahabharata is: 

"To oppress a suppliant, to kill a wife, to rob a Brahman, 
and to betray one's friend, 
These are the four great crimes." 

A misuse of power is a sin; the murder of a wife is a 
greater sin; yet greater still is the robbing of a God- 
representing Brahman ; but the crowning sin of all is the 
betrayal of a friend, — for friendship transcends all loves, 
and crimes against friendship are chiefest of crimes. 

Choo He, a follower of Confucius, makes a similar 
distinction to that which the Bible makes between mar- 
riage as a tie of the flesh, and friendship as a tie of the 
soul. "Marriage is the heaven-ordained relation on 
which depends succession," he says; "and friendship is 



5 2 Transcending All Loves. 

the heaven-ordained relationship on which depends the 
correction of one's character; for by it the way of men 
is traced out, and men's highest principles are built up." 
Classic literature is as rich as Oriental in its praises of 
the transcendency of friendship's love. Says Euripides : 

"A friend 
Welded into our life is more to us 
Than twice five thousand kinsmen, one in blood." 

Sophocles characterizes a friend as a person 

" Dear as one's life which one loves most." 

Aristotle reaffirms this idea of soul-union in true friend- 
ship, saying that a good man ought to feel " toward his 
friend as he does toward himself; for the good man has 
the same relation to his friend as he has to himself." 
And Cicero counsels unhesitatingly : " I can only urge 
you to prefer friendship to all human possessions; for 
there is nothing so suited to our nature, so well adapted 
to prosperity or adversity." And of the pre-eminence 
of friendship over any other human relation, Cicero says : 
" In this respect friendship is superior to relationship ; 
because from relationship a loving regard can be with- 
drawn, while from friendship it cannot be. For with the 
withdrawal of affection the very name of friendship is 
done away, while that of relationship may remain." 

Nor has later literature, philosophic or poetic, re- 
versed the verdict of the classic writers as to the tran- 
scendency of friendship. Says Bacon : " It was a sparing 
speech of the ancients to say that a friend is another 
himself; for that a friend is far more than himself." 

Sir Thomas Browne speaks out of his heart of hearts 



Transcending All Loves. 53 

when he testifies on this point : " I hope I do not break 
the fifth commandment, if I conceive I may love my 
friend before the dearest of my blood — even those to 
whom I owe the principle of life. I never yet cast a true 
affection on a woman [yet this was published, unchanged, 
by the author, two years after his happy marriage] ; but 
I have loved my friend as I do virtue, my soul, and my 
God. From hence, methinks, I do conceive how God 
loves man ; what happiness there is in the love of God." 

" Nor yet," says Montaigne, " do the four time-honored 
kinds [of love], — natural, social, hospitable, and sexual, — 
either separately or conjointly, make up a true and per- 
fect: friendship ; " since this has in it more than them all. 
Montaigne points out that the ties of blood are of neces- 
sity, and the ties of marriage are a covenant obligation, 
both ties being in their continuance compulsory, apart 
from the impulse of untrammeled affection ; " whereas 
friendship has no manner of business or traffic with aught 
but itself," it being voluntary in its beginning, and its 
limitless on-going being unselfish and unswerving. 

It is the German Engel who says : " Blood relationship 
is sweet, and is what nature brings about ; but how much 
sweeter are alliances of the soul." And a German prov- 
erb runs : " We can live without a brother, but not 
without a friend." A corresponding English proverb is : 
" A father is a treasure, a brother is a comfort, but a 
friend is both." Or as Evelyn has it: "There is in 
friendship something of all relations, and something 
above them all." And our Emerson sums up the truth 
in his characterizing of friendship as " that select and 
sacred relation which is a kind of absolute, and which 



54 Transcending All Loves. 

even leaves the language of love suspicious and common, 
so much is this purer ; and nothing is so much divine." 

Spenser leads off, among English-speaking poets, in 
explicit assigning of pre-eminence to friendship in com- 
parison with all other loves : 

" Hard is the doubt, and difficult to deeme, 1 
When all three kindes of love together meet, 
And doe dispart the hart with powre extreme, — 
Whether shall weigh the balance downe ; to weet, 
The deare affection unto kindred sweet, 
Or raging fire of love to womankind, 
Or zeale of frends combynd with vertues meet. 
But of them all the band of vertuous mind, 

Me seemes, the gentle hart should most assured bind. 

" For naturall affection soone doth cesse, 
And quenched is with Cupid's greater flame; 
But faithfull frendship doth them both suppresse, 
And them with maystring 2 discipline doth tame, 
Through thoughts aspyring to eternall fame. 
For as the soule doth rule the earthly masse, 
And all the service of the bodie frame ; 
So love of soule doth love of bodie passe, 
No lesse than perfect gold surmounts the meanest brasse." 

Shirley is equally sure that there is no other love like 

friendship : 

" It is a name 
Virtue can only answer to : couldst thou 
Unite into one all goodness whatsoe'er 
Mortality can boast of, thou shalt find 
The circle narrow, bounded to contain 
This swelling treasure. Every good admits 
Degrees ; but this, being so good, it cannot ; 
For he's no friend who's not superlative. 

1 Decide. 2 Mastering. 



Transcending All Loves. 55 

Indulgent parent, brethren, kindred tied 
By the natural flow of blood, alliances, 
And what you can imagine, are too light 
To weigh with name of friend. They execute 
At best but what a nature prompts them to ; — 
Are often less than friends when they remain 
Our kinsmen still : but friend is never lost. 

Gay sees the inherent superiority of an out-going and 
on-going friendship in its contrast with aught there is in 
the intenser passion of love : 

" Love is a sudden blaze which soon decays, 
Friendship is like the sun's eternal rays ; 
Not daily benefits exhaust the flame : 
It still is giving, and still burns the same." 

Coleridge gives a more discriminating illustration of the 
true supremacy of friendship over love : 

" Love is flower-like ; 
Friendship is a sheltering tree." 

Charles Lamb cries out, in illustration of friendship's 
transcendent love : 

" Friend of my bosom ; thou more than my brother ! " 

Tennyson echoes this estimate of the relative place of 
friendship among loves, when he sings of the one dearest 
to his heart : 

" My friend, the brother of my love ; 

Dear as the mother to her son, 
More than my brothers are to me. 

• • • • • 

The sweetest soul 
That ever looked with human eyes." 



56 Transcending All Loves. 

Longfellow shows his heroic John Alden as recog- 
nizing the superiority of self-abnegating friendship over 
the purest self-indulgent love. It was when Miles Stand- 
ish appealed in the name of his friendship to the young 
lover of Priscilla, to win her for the sturdy chieftain, that 
the answer came back nobly and generously : 

" The name of friendship is sacred ; 
What you demand in that name, I have not the power to 
deny you ! " 

So, 

" Friendship prevailed over love, and Alden went on his errand." 

Browning, with his master power as a poet sets forth, 
in his "Saul," the truth that friendship's love is a revela- 
tion and an earnest of the transcendent love of God. 
David, finding himself helpless in his effort to restore the 
disordered spirit of the King, gains hope through the 
suggestion of his own never-failing affection as a friend. 

"And oh, all my heart how it loved him ! but where was the sign ? 
I yearned — ' Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss, 
I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this ; 
I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence, 
As this moment, — had love but the warrant, love's heart to 
dispense ! ' 

Then the truth came upon me. No harp more — no song more ! 
out-broke — 

' Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, 

That I doubt his own love can compete with it ? Here, the parts 

shift ? 
Here, the creature surpass the Creator, — the end, what Began ? 
Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man, 
And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet alone can ? 



Transcending All Loves. 57 

I believe it ! 'Tis thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who receive : 
In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe. 

See the King — I would help him but cannot, the wishes fall 

through. 
Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, 
To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would — knowing which, 
I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me now ! 
Would I suffer for him that I love ? So wouldst thou — so wilt thou ! 
So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown — 
And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down 
One spot for the creature to stand in ! ' " 

And so it is that David, in the outreach of his unselfish 
love as a friend, comes to a realizing sense of the measure- 
less scope of that Divine love of which friendship is the 
transcendent image and promise. 

Thus always, from the earliest ages to the latest, in 
sacred writings and in secular, friendship finds its recog- 
nition as the pre-eminent and surpassing affection of the 
human heart. The distinction between the love that 
craves and seeks, and the friendship that would unfail- 
ingly serve, has been perceived, all along the centuries ; 
as it was sententiously expressed by Publius Syrus (and 
afterwards by Seneca) : " Friendship always benefits ; but 
love also injures." Or, as Goethe expands the thought: 

" True friendship shows its worth in stern refusal 
At the right moment ; and strong love sometimes 
Heaps the loved one with ruin, when it serves 
The will more than the weal of who demands." 

" A man who is a friend, such as the name imports, — 
except the gods nothing transcends him," says the pagan 
poet Plautus. The Christian illustrator of "holy living" 



58 Transcending All Loves. 

and "holy dying" finds in friendship "the greatest love, 
and the greatest usefulness, and the most open com- 
munion, and the noblest sufferings, and the most exemplary 
faithfulness, and the severest truth, and the heartiest 
counsel, and the greatest union of minds, of which brave 
men and women are capable." As Katherine Philips, a 
poet of friendship, sees it, — 

" 'Tis love refined and purged from all its dross ; 
The next to angel's love, if not the same ; 
As strong as passion is, though not so gross : 
It antedates a glad eternity, 
And is a heaven in epitome." 





CHANGELESS IN CHANGES. 




LOVE that is not conditioned on reciprocity 
or recognition ; a love that is unselfish, 
uncraving, ever out-going and ever on- 
going; a love that consists in loving 
rather than in being loved, and. that is 
based on what the loved one is in himself, not on what 
he is to the one who loves, — cannot be brought to an end 
by any act, or by any lack, of another than the one whose 
best personality it represents and exhibits ; nor by him 
while he is still himself. A true friendship is changeless 
in all changes. It is like the sun, shining just as truly 
toward the earth while clouds are between it and our 
planet, as when the atmosphere is clearest ; not like the 
moon that shines only when it is shined upon. 

" True friendship between man and man," says Plato, 
" is infinite and immortal." Aristotle argues that a friend- 
ship in order to be true must have a right basis, and that, 
having a right basis, a friendship " is, as we might expect, 
permanent ; " that " with respect to time and everything 

59 



60 Changeless in Changes. 

else it is perfect ; that a friendship, " because it is felt for 

its own sake, continues." Cicero similarly reasons : " If 

it were expediency that cemented friendships, expediency 

when changed would dissolve them ; but because one's 

nature can never change, therefore true friendships are 

eternal." It is of friendship's love that Shakespeare says 

unqualifiedly : 

" Love is not love 
Which alters when it alteration finds, 
Or bends with the remover to remove : 
Oh, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark 
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken." 

Mrs. Browning reiterates this truth in her denial that any 
true love ever knew a change : 

" Those never loved, 
Who dream that they loved once." 

The intercourse of true friends is a joy of friendship that 
increases with its exercise, and that can never cloy the 
heart. But the intercourse of friends, while a joy of friend- 
ship, is not a necessity of friendship. What may be the 
intercourse of friends is a possibility without end. What 
must be the intercourse of friends is a possibility without 
beginning. A change in circumstances, that separates 
those who rejoiced in the joy of inspiring intercourse, 
does not change the character or the affection of him 
who is a true friend. " Friends, though absent, are still 
present," says Cicero. Dryden re-phrases this thought : 

" The souls of friends like kings in progress are ; 
Still in their own, though from the palace far." 

" It is sublime," says Emerson, " to feel and say of an- 



Changeless in Changes. 6l 

other, I need never meet, or speak, or write to him ; we 
need not reinforce ourselves, or send tokens of remem- 
brance: I rely on him as on myself; if he did thus or 
thus, I know it was right." 

Wilhelm von Humboldt saw his friend Charlotte 
Diede for only three days, in his early manhood ; but 
the friendship then awakened was maintained unswerv- 
ingly during twenty-six years of absence, and of silence, 
which followed that meeting. Even after that, when the 
intercourse of these two friends was renewed, and was 
kept up by delightful correspondence for the twenty 
remaining years of his life, — both being married, — they 
saw each other only twice in all that time. Yet this is 
one of the friendships of history ; and its record is con- 
sistent with all that is known of the high possibilities of 
changelessness in a friend, despite all changes in the 
intercourse of a friendship. 

A true friendship cannot die ; but a true friend can. Yet 
the absence of a friend through death need not change 
the love that goes out toward him. "Though dead they 
are alive," says Cicero, of friends who are real friends ; 
" so entirely does the honor, the memory, the regret, of 
friends attend them." Similarly says Lavater : 

" True friends, nor death, nor separating fate, 
can e'er divide." 

And Whittier reminds us that our friends who are gone 
are as really friends as while they were with us here : 

" Not shadows in a shadowy band, 
Not others, but themselves are they." 



62 Changeless in Changes. 

r 

David's heart-cry of sorrow and of love for his dead 
friend was : 

" I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan : 
Very pleasant hast thou been unto me ; 
Thy love to me was wonderful, 
Passing the love of women." 

But David's friendship for Jonathan was not changed by 
the change that separated them thus sadly. It was long 
years after this that David, finally settled in his estab- 
lished kingdom, asked of those about him, " Is there yet 
any left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kind- 
ness for Jonathan's sake ? " And when they told him 
of Mephibosheth, the crippled son of Jonathan, David 
brought that representative of his dead friend into his 
royal home, and gave him a place at the king's table, in 
proof of the changelessness of David's friendship for 
Jonathan. I It is of the power over David of this change- 
less friendship, after Jonathan's death, that Cardinal New- 
man tells : 

" O heart of fire ! misjudged by wilful man, 

Thou flower of Jesse's race ! 
What woe was thine, when thou and Jonathan 

Last greeted face to face ! 
He doomed to die, thou on us to impress 
The portent of a blood-stained holiness. 

" Yet it was well : — for so, 'mid cares of rule 

And crime's encircling tide, 
A spell was o'er thee, zealous one, to cool 

Earth-joy and kingly pride ; 
With battle-scene and pageant, prompt to blend 
The pale, calm specter of a blameless friend." 



Changeless in Changes. 63 

No one need cry, with Dryden, to a surviving friend : 

" Be kind to my remains, and oh, defend, 
Against your judgment, your departed friend ! " 

He who is a friend is changeless in friendship : 

" Who heart-whole, pure in faith, once written friend, 
In life and death is true, unto the end ; " 

and the end of life is not a changeless friendship's end. 

" Men have their time, and die many times in desire of 
some things which they principally take to heart," says 
Bacon ; " the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, 
or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest 
almost secure that the care of these things will continue 
after him. So that a man hath, as it were, two lives in 
his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is con- 
fined to a place ; but where friendship is, all offices of life 
are, as it were, granted to him and his deputy." 

History, sacred and profane, is enriched with the rec- 
ord of the recognized and honored legacies of friendship. 
Hiram, king of Tyre, the friend of David, proffered his 
loving service to Solomon, when Hiram was the survivor, 
and Solomon was the successor, of David ; " for Hiram 
was ever a lover of David," — after David's death, as truly 
as before. Homer tells us that Menelaus, when he dis- 
covers that a stranger guest in his house is Telemachus, 
the son of Odysseus, his friend and former fellow-soldier 
before the walls of Troy, exclaims : " Zeus forfend it and 
all the other deathless gods, that ye should depart from 
my house to the swift ship. . . . Never shall the dear son 
of this man, even of Odysseus, lay him down upon the 
ship's deck, while as yet I am alive and my children after 



64 Changeless in Changes. 

me are left in my hall." It was the hereditary, or the 
transmitted, friendship of the elder Laelius for the elder 
Scipio Africanus, as manifested in the loving friendship 
of the younger Laelius and the younger Scipio, which 
was made the basis of Cicero's immortal De Amicitia. 

So, always, he who can be trusted as a friend to a living 
loved one, can be trusted as a friend to those whom death 
bequeaths to him as a legacy from that loved one. Nor 
absence nor death can change any friendship that is 
worthy of its name. 

But there are changes more trying than those of ab- 
sence or of death. He who won a friend's love and 
seemed to return it may cease to be loving, or may cease 
to be true. Can a friendship be changeless in such 
changes as these ? This is an old-time question, that is 
as important to-day as ever. " There is a difficulty," says 
Aristotle, "in the question whether or not we should 
dissolve friendship with those who do not continue the 
same as they originally were. ... If one admits another 
to his friendship as being a good man, and then that loved 
one becomes wicked, or is thought to be so, must he still 
love him ? Or is this impossible ? ... If again the loved 
one continues the same, while the other becomes better, 
and widely different in virtue, must the latter still con- 
sider the former as his friend ? Or is that not possible ? 
The case is plainest when the difference becomes very 
great, as in friendships contracted in childhood ; for if 
one continues a child in intellect, and the other becomes 
a man of the highest character, how can they be friends, 
since they no longer take pleasure in the same things, 
nor sympathize in joy and grief together ? " 



Changeless in Changes. 65 

It is in view of such changes on the part of the one 
loved, — changes that seem to make him another man, or 
to put him outside of the pale of the old friendship, — that 
Aristotle asks, as to the friend who has been sincere and 
true in his affection for him: " Must he, thenceforward, 
feel no otherwise toward him than if he had never been 
his friend ? Or, ought he to remember their past inti- 
macy; and just as we think that a man should confer 
favors on friends rather than on strangers, ought he, in 
like manner, to bestow some consideration on those who 
were his friends, for the sake of past friendship ? " And 
these questions of the great Greek philosopher have been 
puzzled over and reiterated from his day to ours. 

The intimacies of a friendship are one thing ; but the 
friendship itself is quite another thing. The intimacies 
depend on the reciprocal relations of the two friends ; 
but the friendship of either is independent of the course 
or the attitude of the other. A friendship may be change- 
less, while the intimacies of that friendship change greatly. 
A loved one's ways may change, and in consequence 
there may be a change in the intercourse and the seem- 
ing relations between him and the one who has loved 
him; but that does not in itself involve, or justify, a 
change in the love of him who has claimed to be his 
whole-hearted, unselfish friend. 

If, indeed, a friendship were based on a process of rea- 
soning concerning the characteristics and consequent con- 
duct of the one loved, it might change with a disclosed 
change in that basis of estimate. But because a friend- 
ship is based on the facl: that the one who loves is himself, 
and that the one who is loved is himself, a true friendship 

5 



66 Changeless in Changes. 

cannot change while the one who loved remains himself, 
and the one whom he loves is, with all his changes, still 
himself. Failure on the part of the one loved may sad- 
den a friend's heart, or treachery may break it, but no 
such change as this can change that heart's fidelity. 

It was while Jesus was troubled in spirit over his 
already planned betrayal by one whom he had loved as 
a friend, that he made exhibit of his still-continuing un- 
selfish love for him by giving to him the morsel, or sop, 
of affection, out of the dish from which they were par- 
taking together in friendship. In all the changes of that 
night of gloom, the friendship of Jesus was changeless. 
The nearer one's friendship approaches to the standard 
of Jesus, the surer it will be to remain unfailingly true, 
despite every failure of its object of love. 

When Josephus was defending the Jews against the 
attack on them by the pagan Greek Apion, he laid em- 
phasis on their habit of unchanging fidelity in all the 
changes of a chosen friendship. " Secrecy among friends 
is prohibited," he said ; " for friendship implies an entire 
confidence without any reserve." " Nay, where friend- 
ship is dissolved," he added, u we must not be false to a 
former trust." It would hardly be admitted that the 
Christian standard at this point is lower, on this verge of 
the twentieth century, than was that of the Jews at the 
beginning of our era. 

One's self, rather than one's friend, is on trial when the 
question is mooted whether a love given in a friendship 
is to continue changelessly, or is to change. If a man 
was wise and true in giving his love, let him be wise and 
true in its continuing. If, however, it would seem that he 



Changeless in Changes. 6 J 

was not wise, let it not also appear that he is not true. 
Even if it be too late to choose a true friend wisely, it is 
not too late to be wisely true as a friend. 

This thought it is that Cicero emphasizes when he says : 
" We should employ such carefulness in forming our 
friendships that we could not at any time begin to love 
the man whom we could possibly ever hate. Moreover, 
if we have been but unfortunate in our selection, . . . this 
should be submitted to, rather than that a time of alien- 
ation should ever be contemplated. . . . For nothing can 
be more disgraceful than to be at enmity with him with 
whom you have lived on terms of friendship." 

Coleridge, in the greatness of his mind, perceived the 
truth that no change in the intimacies of a friendship 
should change the friendship itself: 

" Unchanged within to see all changed without 
Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. 
Yet why at others' wanings shouldst thou fret ? 
Then only mightst thou feel a just regret, 
Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light 
In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. 
O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, 
While, and on whom, thou mayst — shine on ! nor heed 
Whether the object by reflected light 
Return thy radiance or absorb it quite : 
And though thou notest from thy safe recess 
Old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air, 
Love them for what they are ; nor love them less, 
Because to thee they are not what they were." 

At the best, a change in the intimacies of a friendship 
is a loss to both him who loves and him who is loved. 
It is with all estranged friends as it was with Lord Roland 



6& Changeless in Changes. 

and Sir Leoline, in Coleridge's " Christabel," in their 
estrangement : 

" Each spoke words of high disdain 

And insult to his heart's best brother : 
They parted — ne'er to meet again ! 

But never either found another 
To free the hollow heart from paining— 
They stood aloof, the scars remaining, 

Like cliffs which had been rent asunder ; 
A dreary sea now flows between ; — 

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, 
Shall wholly do away, I ween, 

The marks of that which once hath been." 

A changeless personality, that must unceasingly suffer 
from the changed relations of a once joyous friendship, 
cannot be so untrue to itself as to be untrue to the memo- 
ries, the inspirations, and the obligations, of that friend- 
ship. At the worst, in recognition of that which is called 
a hopeless change in the friendship itself, its reverent cry 

will be : 

" We that were friends, yet are not now, 
We that must daily meet 
With ready words and courteous bow, 

Acquaintance of the street ; 
We must not scorn the holy past, 

We must remember still 
To honor feelings that outlast 
The reason of the will." 




OF WORLD-WIDE HONOR. 



§||P^.^Sf?l V E R Y heart is human, and every human 
yM^^^L% heart has its possibilities in the direction of 
jiHp^la best and truest outreachings of affection. 
^M^VSAff In all lands and in all ages the reciprocal 
ssaShaartB* ties of blood and of marriage have found 
their comparative measure of binding force ; and with like 
universality there has been recognized the binding force 
of the tie in a noble and an ennobling friendship — 
above the dearest of these reciprocal ties. 

Marriage has had its varying degrees of obligation and 
sacredness among different peoples of the world. Polyg- 
amy, polyandry, and promiscuity, have in turn tended to 
destroy or diminish the beauty and sanctity of the primal 
institution of dual union in conjugal love. Parental and 
filial and fraternal affections have had greater or lesser 
sway according to the circumstances and characteristics 
and religious beliefs of diverse nationalities and com- 
munities. Savage customs, or selfish cravings, or eccle- 
siastical requirements, have had their part in crushing 

69 



jo Of World- Wide Honor. 

out the divinely implanted love for offspring. Perverted 
reasoning, or the hard struggle for personal existence, 
has at times so far obliterated from the mind all loyal 
regard for the authors of one's being, as to cause the 
desertion or destruction of helpless or infirm parents to 
be deemed justifiable, or even praiseworthy. All these 
causes have again, in their turn, operated to neutralize 
the love which would bind in unity the several children 
of a common parentage. Yet no people has fallen so low 
in the social scale, nor has any risen so high, as to be 
without the clear conception of a union, real, sacred, and 
abiding, between two persons made one in the love of an 
unselfish and inviolable friendship. 

An absolute merging of two personalities into one, in 
this union of friendship, has been sought, among primi- 
tive peoples everywhere, by the intermingling of the 
blood of the two, through its mutual drinking, or its 
inter-transfusion ; with the thought that blended blood 
is blended life. Traces of this custom are found in the 
traditions and practices of the aborigines of different por- 
tions of Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America, 
and the Islands of the Sea. Nor is there any quarter of 
the globe where traces of this rite, in one form or another, 
are not to be found to-day. 

Almost invariably this formal seeking of a friendship 
union by intermingled blood has been accompanied by 
an appeal to God, or to the gods, in witness of its sacred- 
ness, and in pledge of unswerving fidelity to its obliga- 
tions. A sundering of this tie — unlike that of marriage — 
has ever been deemed an impossibility ; and no claims of 
personal interest, of family, of caste, of country, or of 



Of World- Wide Honor. 71 

religion, have been recognized as justifying a denial, by 
either party, of the pre-eminent hold on him by his other 
very self; and fidelity to this tie has been always held to 
be the duty of each friend, apart from the fact of the 
fidelity of the other. It may, indeed, be affirmed unquali- 
fiedly, that no other human tie or bond has had the sacred- 
ness and inviolability which attaches to this soul inter- 
merging in friendship — in every age and everywhere. 

Even where the intermingling of very blood no longer 
prevails as a method of seeking or symbolizing soul union 
in friendship, that union is often pledged by solemn vows 
in the presence of protecting and avenging divinities, in 
evidence that it is put beyond recall by the parties who 
assume its sacred responsibilities and obligations. Thus, 
in China, two friends will covenant with each other by 
burning incense together before some popular idol, or 
they will together worship Heaven and Earth, invoking a 
blessing on their friendship, and imprecating a curse on its 
violation. In Syria, in Arabia, in Egypt, and in Turkey, 
it is customary to solemnize the ratifying of a friendship 
by the two parties visiting together some holy shrine 
where their formal promises of mutual fidelity shall be 
made doubly binding. Similarly, for centuries it was the 
habit of Christian friends to hallow their vow of friend- 
ship by partaking together of the Holy Communion at 
the church altar. And to the present time, in Russia, 
there exists the practice of an interchange of blood-sym- 
bolizing crosses in a sacred friendship, as an apparent 
survival of the primitive custom of reverently intercom- 
mingling the blood itself in God's sight. Among some 
tribes of North American Indians the " Friendship Dance" 



72 Of World-Wide Honor. 

is a rude religious ceremony by which a formal recog- 
nition is made of the union in friendship of two warriors, 
in the presence of their tribe and of unseen spirits above. 
Again, it will be by the dividing of a bloody scalp 
between two Indians who are drawn to one another, that 
a common life in friendship is sought; as if by the help 
of him who is the Author of all life. In some such 
solemn way, " two young men agree to be perpetual 
friends to each other, or more than brothers. Each 
[thenceforward] reveals to the other the secrets of his 
life, and counsels with him on matters of importance, 
and defends him from wrong and violence, and at his 
death is chief mourner." 

In incidental proof of the primitive idea that in friend- 
ship's highest attainment there is an absolute intermin- 
gling and merging of two natures into one, there is the 
world-wide custom of ratifying a covenant of friendship 
by the exchanging of garments, or armor, or weapons, 
or of personal names. This exchanging of names 
in friendship, which prevails widely among primitive 
peoples, is peculiarly significant of this idea. It is 
not, as in the case of marriage, the acceptance of one 
name for both parties, as a matter of convenience, or as a 
seeming surrender of one personality to another ; but it 
is rather a mutual transference of personal identity. It 
is as if the friendship which originated " because he was 
he, and because I was I," had issued in the conclusion, 
" Now he is I, and now I am he." Nor is the idea here 
suggested one which marks a lower degree of intelli- 
gence, cultivation, or spiritual perception and attainment. 
It is found in the sacred writings of the East ; and it 



Of World-Wide Honor. 73 

shows itself in the choicest classic lore and Christian lit- 
erature. It enters into the shaping of human language 
concerning human affection. It is, in fa6l, of the very 
being of friendship at its truest and best. 

It is said of the loving union of two divine friends, Ra 
and Osiris, in the theogony of ancient Egypt, that " each 
embraced the other, and [they] became as one soul in 
two souls " — as one life in two lives. Hence, " Ra is the 
soul of Osiris, and Osiris is the soul of Ra." Similarly 
it is declared of two divine friends, Vishnoo and Siva, 
in the theogony of India : " The heart of Vishnoo is 
Siva, and the heart of Siva is Vishnoo." The one is the 
other, and the two are one. 

Aristotle cites among the time-honored proverbs of 
Greece in his day, in illustration of the union wrought 
by a sincere friendship : " One soul [in common] ; " 
" Friendship is equality ; " " The property of friends is 
common." And for his own definition Aristotle gives : 
" A friend is another self." Not partnership, but union, 
is found in friendship. 

Says Cicero : " He who looks on a true friend looks 
as it were upon a kind of himself;" for "a true friend 
... is as it were a second self; " and so either is the 
other. Horace again apostrophizes Virgil as " the half 
of my soul ; " and the two halves of a soul are equal, and 
are equally incomplete. 

This idea of an intermerged identity in true friendship 
is found in a common root-term which enters into words 
meaning " friendship " or " unselfish love," in many of the 
Indo-European languages. The Latin amo, "to love," 
from which comes amicitia, "friendship," as also the 



74 Of World-Wide Honor. 

Sanskrit karri, " to love," is cognate with the Greek hama, 
" together with," "at one with," "the same as;" and this 
term again has its correspondents in the Sanskrit sama y 
the Zend hama y the Latin simul and similis, the Gothic 
sama, the German samrnt, the Anglo-Saxon same ; the 
radical thought throughout being that of " likeness " 
even to "sameness." In the aboriginal languages of both 
North and South America there are many illustrations 
of this idea, especially among those people who dis- 
tinguish closely between different kinds of affection. It 
is in recognition of this idea that we speak of " liking " 
one whom we love, or of being like him, as a cause, or as 
a result, of our love for him. And herein is the justifica- 
tion of the saying of Publius Syrus : " Friendship either 
finds men equal, or makes them so." 

Friendship is a theme of themes in the world's esteem- 
ing. The sacred books of the ages give it a foremost 
place among the holiest of human relations ; and neither 
the works of cold philosophy nor those of fervid imagi- 
nation, nor yet the writings of hard unbelief, ignore it, or 
deem it unworthy of high extolling. 

The wisest of the Old Testament writers, who had 
exhausted the treasures and the pleasures of the world 
in their power to minister to his advantage, testifies to the 
pre-eminence of friendship in its enduring gain ; 

"A friend loveth at all times, 
And is born as a brother for adversity." 

"Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart : 
So doth the sweetness of a man's friend that cometh 

of hearty counsel. 
Thine own friend and thy father's friend, forsake not." 



Of World-Wide Honor. 75 

" Iron sharpeneth iron ; 
So a man sharpeneth the countenance 
of his friend." 

And, in the New Testament, One wiser than Solomon 
declares : " Greater love hath no man than this, that a 
man lay down his life for his friends " — as friendship has 
many a time prompted a friend to do gladly. 
Says the Son of Sirach, in the Apocrypha : 

"A faithful friend is a strong defence : 
And he that hath found him hath found a treasure. 
There is nothing to be exchanged for a faithful friend, 
And his excellence is invaluable. 
A faithful friend is the medicine of one's life ; 
And they that fear the Lord shall find him." 

Rabbi Eleazer, in the Talmud, says : " Let the honor 
of thy friend be dear unto thee as thine own." And a 
Talmudic proverb summarizes the gains of friendship in 
the exclamation : " Friends, though they be as the friends 
of Job; or else death ! " 

Every Muhammadan is designated in the literature of 
Arabic theologians as el-Habecb, — " the friend ; " since 
in their opinion there can be no more sacred bond of 
unity than that which is thus indicated. Even the author 
of the Quran, himself, who had forbidden mourning over 
the death of a believer, wept sorely when Zayd, his loved 
personal friend, was taken from him ; and his answer to 
the question why he should thus transgress his own com- 
mandment was : " This is not forbidden ; for this is but 
the yearning in the heart of friend for friend." Other 
relations may be sundered tearlessly, but the parting of 
friends cannot be borne without sorrow. 



J 6 Of World-Wide Honor. 

In the most ancient Chinese classics, — the Shoo King 
and the Shi King, which were venerable sources of wis- 
dom to Confucius, — the relation of "friend and friend" is 
pointed out as a Heaven-ordained and a Heaven-honored 
relation. Of him who has found a true friend, it is there 

affirmed: 

" Spiritual beings will then hearken to him. 
He shall have harmony and peace." 

The teachings of those works tend to show that the 
cultivation of friendship is a sure means of promoting one's 
spiritual welfare. Confucius laid emphasis on the impor- 
tance of friendship ; and he admitted that he had not 
attained to the highest demands of its standard of pure 
and unselfish affection. A successor of Confucius said 
sweepingly : " From the emperor downwards all must 
have friends. Friendship is the first of the social rela- 
tionships, and may not be abandoned for a single day." 

The Institutes of Manu are a basis of Hindoo teach- 
ing concerning truth and duty. These Institutes picture 
the relation of " friend " as surviving all relations of blood 
or marriage in the world to come; and they point to a 
" betrayer of a friend " as one who should be excluded 
from the sacred funeral feasts. In the Mahabharata, the 
epic-thesaurus of Hindoo wisdom, a like prominence is 
given to friendship and to the sin of its betrayal. In 
the Sanatsugatiya, an episode of the Mahabharata, "six 
characteristics " are specified as pertaining to friendship : 
That one should rejoice with his friend at anything pleas- 
ing ; that one should grieve with his friend at anything 
disagreeable ; that, with a pure heart, one, when solicited 
by his friend, should give to him whatever he seeks, even 



Of World-Wide Honor. J J 

though it be something that ought not to be asked for — 
as one's wealth, one's sons, or even one's own wife ; that 
when one has given thus freely to his friend, he should 
not continue to dwell near him through a desire to secure 
some return for his gifts ; that one should live by his own 
toil, rather than by the toil of a friend ; and that one 
should freely forgo his own profit for a friend's sake. 

At the very basis of the Zend-Avesta— the inspired 
guide of the Parsee — is the conception of friendship at 
its holiest and best. Mithra, or Mitra, " the god of the 
heavenly light," is in himself a personification of friend- 
ship. " Mitra means, literally, ' a friend,' " says the scho- 
liast. Max Miiller gives the term as " derived from the 
word mid, * to be fat,' ' to make fat,' ' to make shining,' 
'to love,'" the root idea being that of shining out and 
shining on enrichingly toward a loved one. Hence the 
Parsee conception of the nature and mission of a true 
friend is that of the free shining of a heavenly light, 
regardless of its reception or reflection by the object 
shined on. Rashnoo, again, is " the genius of truth," in 
the Parsee theogony. The Zend-Avesta says that Rash- 
noo gave all his soul for long friendship to Mitra. This 
makes the interunion of light and truth an illustration 
of holy friendship, in the Parsee religion. " I will sacri- 
fice unto friendship, the best of all friendships, that reigns 
between the moon and the sun," says a devout believer, 
as cited in the Zend-Avesta. The sun here represents 
the friend, who sends out the light of his love unfailingly 
toward the moon. The moon receives and refle6ls that 
brilliant light ; but even if it were not to do so, the sun 
would keep on shining in that direction. 



78 Of World-Wide Honor. 

Perhaps the one form of religion in all the world which 
is by its very nature inimical to that which is holiest and 
noblest in a pure friendship is Booddhism ; for Booddhism, 
as a religion, is the incarnation and deification of Self; 
while friendship is in its very soul and essence the ab- 
negation of self. Yet even Booddhism testifies to the 
admirableness and worth of the highest conception of 
friendship, while giving warning against the outlay of 
that love which is the life of such a friendship. " From 
love comes grief, from love comes fear," says the Dham- 
mapada ; " he who is free from love knows neither, grief 
nor fear." " So long as the love of man towards women, 
even the smallest [measure of it], is not destroyed, so 
long is his mind in bondage." " Sons are no help, nor a 
father, nor relations ; there is no help from kinship, for 
one whom death has seized." 

This is the starting-point of Booddhism with reference 
to the ties of marriage and of kinship ; and the whole 
trend of that self-seeking religion is in the direction of 
hostility to these ties. The counsel of the Booddhist 
Suttasis: " In him who has intercourse (with others) 
affections arise, (and then) the pain which follows affec- 
tion; considering the misery that originates in affection, 
let one wander alone like a rhinoceros." " He who has 
compassion on his friends and confidential (companions) 
loses (his own) advantage, having a fettered mind ; see- 
ing this danger in friendship, let one wander alone like 
a rhinoceros." " Having left son and wife, father and 
mother, wealth and corn and relatives, the objects of de- 
sire, let one wander alone like a rhinoceros." 

But while it is inconsistent with the self-seeking spirit 



Of World-Wide Honor. 79 

of Booddhism to be a friend, it is not inconsistent with 
that spirit to have a friend, if true friendship proffers its 
disinterested and unswerving love to the self-seeker. 
Therefore the Booddhist Suttas go on to say, compla- 
cently : " Surely we ought to praise the good luck of 
having companions ; the best (and such as are our) equals 
ought to be sought for ; not having acquired such friends 
let one, enjoying (only) allowable things, wander about 
like a rhinoceros." But, again, " If one acquires a clever 
companion, an associate righteous and wise, let him, over- 
coming all dangers, wander about with him glad and 
thoughtful." Then, in recognition of the fact that it is 
not easy, for one who is unwilling to be a friend, to com- 
mand a pure and disinterested friendship, the Suttas moan 
out : " Friends without an object are now difficult to 
get!" Thus the selfishest religion in the universe pays 
its tribute to unselfish friendship, by affirming that friend- 
ship is better worth having than any other human affec- 
tion — if only it can be had without cost to its receiver. 

The Icelandic sagas and the Norseland Eddas are as 
explicit in their recognition of the beauty of the unselfish 
fidelity of friend to friend, as are the Vedas and Suttas 
of India. Thus, in the renderings of Taylor and of 
Howitt, from the Hava-mal : 

" He is the faithful friend who spares 
Out of his pair of loaves the one." 

" Love your own friends, and also theirs ; 
But favor not your foeman's friend." 

" If thou hast a friend 
Whom thou canst confide in, 
And wouldst have the joy of his friendship, 



80 Of World - Wide Honor. 

Then mingle thy thoughts with his, 

Give gifts freely, 

And often be with him." 

" The tree withereth 
Which stands in the courtyard 
Without shelter of bark or of leaf. 
So is a man 
Destitute of friends. 
Why should he live on?" 

In every record of man's thought or feeling, in all the 
ages, wherein is any gleam of heavenly wisdom or of 
heavenward aspiring, there are sure to be found the recog- 
nition and praise of friendship as God's good gift to man, 
and as a human reflection of Divine love. Prophet, evan- 
gelist, sage, philosopher, poet, and truth-seeker, — all have 
their eyes on this lofty ideal. 

A versified citation from the Greek Menander runs : 

" Not on the store of sprightly wine, 

Nor plenty of delicious meats 
Though generous Nature did design 

To court us with perpetual treats ; — 
'Tis not on these we for content depend, 
So much as on the shadow of a friend." 

From the ancient Sanskrit the reminder comes : 

" The words which from a stranger's lips offend, 
Are honey-sweet if spoken by a friend: 
As when the smoke of common wood we spurn, 
But call it perfume sweet when fragrant aloes burn." 

It is Ennius, who has been called the Chaucer of the 
Romans, who asks, 

" How can life be true life without friends? " 



Of World-Wide Honor. 81 

And the Russian poet Dimitriev re-echoes this thought 
when he says for himself, despondently : 

" I've been seeking a friend ! — there's none below; 
The world must soon to ruin go." 

Hafiz, the Persian, sings : 

" Every one the friend solicits, 
Be he sober, quaff he wine." 

Germany's Schiller reiterates this asseveration, as he 
sings of the surpassing light that is seen 

" In friendship's eloquent and beaming eye." 

" Lo ! arm in arm, through every upward grade, 
From the rude Mongol to the starry Greek 
(Who the fine link between the mortal made 

And heaven's lost seraph), — everywhere 
Union and bond we seek — till in one sea sublime 
Of love, be merged all measure and all time." 

The Swiss Lavater says in his " Words of the Heart : " 

" Noble friends are a pledge, to the noble, of God and the future ; 
True friends, nor death nor separating fate can divide." 

It is that intensest of Frenchmen, Voltaire, who extols 
this sentiment, as 

" Friendship divine, true happiness of heaven, 
Sole motion of the soul wherein excess 
Is righteous." 

The Spanish poet Calderon bears witness : 

" There is no better book 

In life, than a wise friend ; 
For with his teaching-look 

His teaching-voice shall blend." 
6 



82 Of World-Wide Honor. 

And the English Matt Prior links the old and the new, in 
the thought that everywhere is both new and old : 

" Of all the gifts the gods afford, 
(If we may trust old Tully's word,) 
The greatest is a friend, whose love 
Knows how to praise, and when reprove." 

Finally our own Emerson, both philosopher and poet, 
rounds out the sphere of friendship's praise, in his decla- 
ration, " A friend may well be reckoned the master-piece 
of nature." 

The world's folk-lore, which is the world's preferred 
traditions of primitive beliefs, gives a foremost place, in 
its exhibit of noblest purpose and endeavor, to unswerv- 
ing fidelity in the sphere of purely disinterested friend- 
ship. The earliest traditions preserved to us out of the 
records of Babylonia and Egypt and China and India, as 
also those of the Norseland, of Southern Africa, and of 
North and South America, include multiplied illustrations 
of such faithfulness of friendship in its heroic aspects. 

An Arabic classic on friendship is the Book of 'Enoch, 
which has appeared also in Hebrew and in French. Its 
main feature is the story of two friends, the one of Bag- 
dad and the other of Cairo. He of Cairo, finding that he 
of Bagdad was enamored of a slave-girl, just purchased 
by the Cairene, and counted by him as a peculiar treas- 
ure, insisted on making a gift of her to his friend in token 
of his friendship. When the girl had been taken to Bag- 
dad the Cairene found his own love for her not yet van- 
quished, and he visited Bagdad in the hope of seeing her 
again. Ashamed to show himself to his friend — as one 
who might seem regretful of his a6l of self-denial — he, 



Of World -Wide Honor . 83 

while wandering a stranger in the great city, was sus- 
pected of a murder which had been committed, and in his 
heart-sickness he would not deny the charge. As he 
was led through the streets to be executed, his friend, in 
passing, recognized him, and, on learning the facts of the 
case, insisted that he himself was the murderer, in the 
hope of saving his friend. Then came the conflict of 
friendship,— each friend seeking to die in the other's stead, 
until the real murderer, moved by this scene, came for- 
ward to confess the deed, and so to save them both. 

Down in Southern Africa, one of the folk-lore tales of 
the negroes is not unlike this story in its purport. A 
rich man finding that one of his wives is in love with his 
own dearest friend, who is a poor man, makes a pretense 
of quarreling with that wife, in order to drive her from 
his home so that his friend may marry her — without any 
conflict in his feelings of friendship. Then her first hus- 
band makes generous gifts to his friend, in evidence of 
his unbroken friendship with him, and as a help to his 
and her happiness. When a son is born of this new mar- 
riage, the father is told that nothing short of the sacrifice 
of this son will avail to save his self-denying friend. This 
sacrifice is willingly assented to, and for seven years the 
father supposes that his loved son is dead. Never once, 
meanwhile, does he mention his loss, nor yet does his 
love for his friend ever fail or waver. But his friendship, 
also, having thus been tested, his son is finally restored 
to him, to his great rejoicing. " This is the old widely 
spread saga," says Grimm, " told, in so many different 
forms, of the two faithful friends who reciprocally sacri- 
fice what they hold dearest." Another phase of this 



84 Of World- Wide Honor. 

same story appears in Arabia, another in Scandinavia, 
and yet another in the old English legends. In every 
instance a husband and a father is ready to give up his 
own and only son in order to save the life of an imperiled 
friend. 

There is another folk-lore story in Africa, of a Muham- 
madan imam and his heathen friend, who journeyed to- 
gether toward Mekka. The imam broke friendship with 
his friend, the heathen was faithful in his friendship. On 
reaching Mekka, the heathen was admitted to the Holy 
House, and the imam, because of his unfaithfulness in 
friendship, was excluded. These two men died on the 
same day. The earth refused a grave to the imam, and 
Paradise was shut against him. The heathen who had 
been true as a friend found a grave for his body and a 
heaven for his soul. 

Out of the collection of European folk-lore tales known 
as the Gesta Romanorum, there is the legend of a king's 
son who thought he had three friends, the first of whom 
he loved better than himself, the second as well as him- 
self, and the third little or none. At his father's sug- 
gestion he put their friendship to the test by assuming 
to be in danger of crucifixion because of having killed a 
man by accident ; and he asked them, one by one, for 
their assistance in his dilemma. The first coolly prof- 
fered him the needful cloth for wrapping his dead body 
in. The second more tenderly expressed a willingness 
to be near him as a comforter until his death. The third 
was prompt and earnest to say he would gladly die for 
him if he could, or else he would die with him. 

An Icelandic folk-lore tale tells of Gunnar and Njal, 



Of World- Wide Honor. 85 

two loyal friends, who were so true to each other that, 
when their wives quarreled, the husbands would not con- 
sent to be separated on account of them, but " their 
friendship only grew the closer for the contentions of 
their women." When one of Njal's kinsmen was killed 
by a member of Gunnar's household, Njal would not have 
the deed avenged on Gunnar's people, but settled the 
matter by " blood money." When Gunnar was in want, 
in time of famine, Njal sent him food in abundance, as 
" a friend's gift to a friend." Gunnar's response to Njal 
was : " Good are thy gifts, but better than all gifts is thy 
friendship." Because those two friends would be true 
to each other in spite of the quarrels of their wives and 
their kinsfolk, first Gunnar lost his life, and then Njal was 
burned to death in defense of his sons and their friend, in 
a quarrel that had its origin in the quarrel of the wives 
of Gunnar and Njal. The friendship was proof against 
all trials, even unto death. 

In the folk-lore stories of the poor Eskimo, hardly 
any phase of personal fidelity is more prominent than 
that shown in a persistent and affectionate confiding in a 
friend who is untrustworthy and false. Again and again 
the story is there told of a man who was betrayed by his 
friend, yet who would love that friend unswervingly, in 
spite of every experience of his faithlessness, and in defi- 
ance of all the dangers of such a misapplied confiding. 
There, as everywhere, it is not the gain of being true and 
of trusting, but it is the instinctive impulse to be true 
and trustful, that sways the friend in his friendship. 

Even with the world's imperfect standard as it is, there 
is an ideal conception of the beauty of self-abnegating 



86 Of World- Wide Honor. 

fidelity. " All praise the faithful friend," is the testimony 
of an eminent folk-lore gatherer. " All praise to the 
faithful friend ! " responds the world. 

And thus along the centuries and out of every clime ! 
From the torrid wastes of Sahara to the frozen peaks of 
Iceland, from the ancient seat of empire in the far East 
to the unsettled prairies of the still receding West, there 
sounds one voice of sense and sentiment, instinctive or 
inspired. Egyptian seer, and Hebrew lawgiver, and Greek 
philosopher, and Roman scholar, and Christian apostle, 
and Chinese sage, and Persian mystic, and Hindoo 
devotee, and Arab enthusiast, and Russian doubter, and 
German schoolman, and French skeptic, and Italian 
dreamer, and Spanish romancist, and Swiss theologian, 
and Norseland bard, and English and American essayist 
and poet, and every primitive teller of folk-lore tales from 
pole to pole, — all are at one in their emphatic testimony 
to the surpassing preciousness of the unselfish love and 
the unswerving fidelity of a human friend. 

" What a thing friendship is, world without end ! " 




GAINFULLY EXPENSIVE. 



3fc ^"'^^SHILE friendship is by its very nature un- 

selfish and out-going, friendship is also 
by its very nature a constant gainer 
through its loving expenditure of self. 
It receives by its outlay. 
"Friendship renders prosperity more brilliant, while 
it lightens adversity by sharing it and making its burden 
common." It was Cicero who popularized this thought; 
although he re-phrased it from Euripides, and again it 
is cited in substance among the sayings of Confucius. 
Whoever may have first given currency to this idea, it 
has come down through the ages as the accepted epitome 
of the advantages of the expensive and remunerative 
relation of friendship. 

"This communicating of a man's self to his friend," 
says Bacon, " works two contrary effects ; for it redou- 
bleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no 
man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth 
the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his 

87 



SS Gainfully Expensive. 

friend, but he grieveth the less." Jeremy Taylor gives, 
as usual, an added finish to this figure, when he says : 
" A friend shares my sorrow and makes it but a moiety ; 
but he swells my joy and makes it double. For so two 
channels divide the river and lessen it into rivulets, and 
make it fordable and apt to be drunk up at the first revels 
of the Sirian star ; but two torches do not divide, but 
increase, the flame : and though my tears are the sooner 
dried up when they run upon my friend's cheeks in the 
furrows of compassion, yet when my flame hath kindled 
his lamp we unite the glories, and make them radiant 
like the golden candlesticks that burn before the throne 
of God, because they shine by numbers, by unions and 
confederations of light and joy." 

So often and so earnestly has this truth of the inci- 
dental gain of a mutual friendship been urged in poetry 
and in prose, that many have recognized in its affirma- 
tions an inducement to friendship. But just so soon as 
a friendship is sought for its reward, that friendship falls 
short of being the friendship which has this reward. In 
all holiest service of love the truth remains, that "whoso- 
ever shall seek to gain his life shall lose it: but whoso- 
ever shall lose his life shall preserve it." Friendship 
brings its largest returns to him who asks no return, but 
who lavishes love without a thought of gain. 

Friendship is indeed profitable to him who exercises 
it, but its profit is in proportion to its expensiveness ; 
and the expensiveness of friendship is cumulative and 
ceaseless. He, therefore, who would fain have the gains 
of friendship, may well ask himself if he is willing to 
make the necessary outlay of friendship. " Grant unto 



Gainfully Expensive. 89 

us," asked two of the friends of Jesus, " that we may 
sit, one on thy right hand, and one on thy left hand, in 
thy glory. But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what 
ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink ? or to 
be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? " 
Many a longing one since the days of John and James 
has wished for the returns of a loving devotedness with- 
out counting the countless cost of such devotion. 

" All like the purchase ; few the price will pay : 
And this makes friends such miracles below." 

" Ye canna' be a guid freen' ohne peyin' fort," is a 
Scotch proverb with a truth for all peoples. The outlay 
in a real friendship's cost is threefold : an outlay in self- 
surrender ; an outlay in suffering for one's friend ; an 
outlay in suffering from one's friend ; and these three 
items of outlay are expensive and remunerating in the 
order of their naming. 

Only through an unfailing forgetfulness of self is friend- 
ship a possibility ; and self-forgetfulness is an expensive 
virtue. Publius Syrus said : " Enmity costs less than 
affe<5tion ; " that is, there is no such outlay involved in 
the disregarding of others as in giving to others loving 
service. This is unmistakably true ; but it is also true 
that affeciion gains more than enmity, and that there is 
no such personal advantage in loving only one's self as 
in loving another above one's self. 

He who is a friend suffers with his friend because he 
is his friend. No suffering on one's own account can, 
indeed, be such a grievous trial to a friend as the suffering 
he endures when the one whom he loves best is a suf- 



90 Gainfully Expensive. 

ferer. He inevitably shares the burden of that suffering, 
and he would be glad if he could bear it wholly. Now 
the sharing, or, what is more, the bearing and engross- 
ing, another's griefs and trials, demands a larger outlay 
of sympathy and of strength in endurance than is called 
for in carrying only one's personal sorrows ; yet this 
very outlay is its own return accordingly, enlarging and 
strengthening the heart which it taxes. 

This certainty of an increased outlay of heart's blood 
through the demands of an unselfish affection it is that 
prompted the selfish maxim of the icy-hearted Booddha : 
" Let, therefore, no man love anything ; loss of the be- 
loved is evil. Those who love nothing and hate nothing 
have no fetters." And it is in answer to this disloyal cry 
of the self- insulating soul, that our Christian laureate 
rings back the rejoinder: 

" I hold it true, whate'er befall ; 
I feel it when I sorrow most ; 
Tis better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all." 

In no realm is it truer than in the realm of the affections 
that "it is more blessed to give than to receive; " and it 
is in illustration and in proof of this primal principle that 
in that outlay of self which makes one a friend there 
is gained that income of added capability of friendship, 
which, after all, is the chiefest reward of being a friend. 

The uttermost outlay of an unselfish friendship is, how- 
ever, liable to be in the loving endurance of suffering 
from a friend. And nothing better proves, or more surely 
advantages, a true friendship, than this willing outlay of 
self, when the need exists, under the inflictions of pain, — 



Gainfully Expensive. 91 

unkind, thoughtless, or all unconscious, as they may be, 
— on the part of the one loved. The very capacity for 
an absolutely unselfish affection includes a keen sensi- 
tiveness in the direction of that affection ; and no love is 
more liable to misconception — through its very absence 
of apparent motive — than a love that is without limit or 
claim or craving. Hence no one can so deeply wound a 
true friend as the one to whom a person is a true friend. 
" The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table " tells of the 
side door of the heart which enters at once into the secret 
chambers of one's being, and of the peril of trusting a key 
to that door to any loved one. " Be very careful to whom 
you trust one of these keys of the side door," he says. 
" The fa6l of possessing one renders those even who are 
dear to you very terrible at times. . . . Some of them 
have a scale of your whole nervous system, and can play 
all the gamut of your sensibilities in semitones, — touch- 
ing the naked nerve-pulps as a pianist strikes his instru- 
ment. . . . No stranger can get a great many notes of 
torture out of a human soul; it takes one that knows it 
well." Susan Coolidge phrases this same thought more 
seriously : 

" Roses have thorns ; and love is thorny too ; 

And this is love's sharp thorn which guards its flower, — 
That our beloved have the cruel power 
To hurt us deeper than all others do. 

" The heart attuned to our heart like a charm, 
Beat answering beat, as echo answers song, — 
If the throb falter, or the pulse beat wrong, 
How shall it fail to grieve us or to harm ? " 

That there is in the truest friendship a possible call to 



92 



Gainfully Expensive. 



this outlay of suffering from a friend's fault or a friend's 
failure, or from some mutual misunderstanding, is obvi- 
ous because of the human imperfectness of both the loving 
and the loved ; yet it is also evident that, because a true 
friendship is in its essence unselfish and unswerving love, 
therefore the larger the outlay of necessary unselfish per- 
formance, or of necessary unselfish endurance, in a friend- 
ship, the larger the subjective results of that friendship 
in the enlarged and ever-enlarging heart that thus loves 
and does and endures unselfishly. 

What if one must generously give himself in love for a 
friend, in suffering with a friend, and in endurance from 
a friend : 

" A friend is worth all hazards we can run. 
Poor is the friendless master of a world : 
A world in purchase of a friend is gain." 




LIMITATIONS AND IMITATIONS. 




IN affection that transcends all loves, and 
that has ever commanded the highest 
honor among men, must, inevitably, have 
its limitations and its imitations. Its lim- 
itations will be found in the restricted 
possibilities of the individual whom it sways, while its 
imitations are a result of the widespread desire for its 
supposed advantages. 

He who is capable of friendship at its best, cannot be 
a true friend alike to all. The very intensity of this senti- 
ment demands a positive limit to the extension of its 
scope. And, on the other hand, many a person who tells 
of his " host of friends," or of her 

" Dear five hundred friends," 

never had, nor ever could be, a friend in the truest sense. 
The most unselfish and expensive of human affections 
cannot be for all, or from all, alike. Its exacting demands 
fix its limitations, its recognized attractiveness multiplies 
its imitations. 

93 



94 Limitations and Imitations, 

The highest conceivable attainment of a personal 
friendship is a union of two souls through a mutuality of 
affection. Such a union is, indeed, an incidental result 
of the conjunction of two friendships, rather than the 
primitive aim of either of the two ; but it is obvious that 
a union of this sort is inevitably limited to one person on 
either side. More than two cannot be one, as two can be. 

The suggestion of this truth is found in the words of 
Moses concerning " thy friend who is as thine own self." 
It is recognized as a truth of the ages by Aristotle, when 
he cites as a proverbial symbol of friendship the term, 
" one soul in two bodies." St. Augustine has it in mind 
as he tells of a friend who has been taken from him : " I 
thought that my soul and his were but one soul in two 
bodies : and therefore [at his death] I loathed life because 
I was unwilling to live by halves." 

Montaigne seems to have been reading both Aristotle 
and St. Augustine, when he writes of the soul-union 
illustrated in his relation with his friend : "In the friend- 
ship I speak of, the souls mix and work themselves into 
one piece with so perfect a mixture that there is no more 
sign of a seam by which they were first conjoined. . . . 
The union of such friends, being really perfect, deprives 
them of all acknowledgment of mutual duties [love being 
the fulfilling of the law], and makes them loathe and 
banish from their conversation words of separation, dis- 
tinction, benefit, obligation, acknowledgment, entreaty, 
thanks, and the like ; all things — wills, thoughts, opinions, 
goods, wives, children, honors, and lives — being in effect 
common between them ; and that absolute concurrence 
of affections being no other than one soul in two bodies 



Limitations and Imitations. 95 

(according to that very proper definition of Aristotle), 
they can neither lend nor give anything to one an- 
other." 

Dryden had evidently been reading Montaigne, and 
so gaining lessons from St. Augustine and Aristotle at 
second hand, when, in his " All for Love," he made 
Mark Antony tell of his union with his then missing 
and sorely lamented friend, Dolabella : 

" I was his soul ; he lived not but in me : 
We were so closed within each other's breasts, 
The rivets were not found that joined us first, 
That did not reach as yet. We were so mixed 
As meeting streams, both to ourselves were lost. 
We were one mass ; we could not give or take 
But from the same ; for he was I, I he." 

It is in joyous appreciation of the interunion of his 
soul and the soul of his " dear friend," that Shakespeare 
confesses his inability to divide that united self, even for 
the purpose of sounding his friend's just praises : 

" Oh ! how thy worth with manners may I sing 
When thou art all the better part of me ? 
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring? 
And what is't but mine own, when I praise thee ? " 

Even the devout Jeremy Taylor, while insisting that 
the New Testament idea of friendship is that " charity," 
or " love," which in its fullest exercise would take in all 
mankind, recognizes the truth that in its practical appli- 
cation, within the sphere of our being, " this universal 
friendship . . . must be limited, because we are so ; " and 
that while we should be " friendly " toward all, " all can- 



q6 Limitations and Imitations. 

not be admitted to a special actual friendship " in our 
affections. And his conclusion is, that Christianity jus- 
tifies the Christian in choosing as a friend " the bravest, 
the worthiest, and the most excellent person " to be found. 

In the very nature of things a true man cannot give 
the homage of his truest self except to one who com- 
mands his love and confidence in a unique degree ; and 
this fact marks both the limitation and the grace of the 
supremest friendship. The gradations and limitations 
of friendship's power are forcefully outlined in this illus- 
tration of John Foster's : " One is not one's ' genuine 
self — one does not disclose all one's self — to those with 
whom one has no intimate sympathy. One is, therefore, 
several successive and apparently different characters, 
according to the gradation of the faculties and the quali- 
ties of those one associates with. I am like one of those 
boxes I have seen enclosing several boxes of similar 
form though lessening size. The person with whom I 
have least congeniality sees only the outermost. Another 
person has something more interesting in his character: 
he sees the next box. Another sees still an inner one. 
But the friend of my heart, with whom I have full sym- 
pathy, sees the innermost of all." 

It is in this very limitation of the truest friendship 
that the truest friendship finds its transcendent and 
unique power. ''There can never be deep peace between 
two spirits," says Emerson, " never mutual respect, until 
in their dialogue each stands for the whole world." So 
it is that Tennyson, mourning his one friend, finds him- 
self wholly friend-bereft : 

"And unto me no second friend." 



Limitations and Imitations. gy 

Browning's Abbe seems to have this thought also, when 
he exclaims concerning the varying grades of human 
affection : 

"The love which to one and one only has reference 
Seems terribly like what perhaps gains God's preference." 

There is a popular tendency to confound " friendship " 
with " friendliness ; " to think of that quality of friendli- 
ness which makes its possessor prompt to show a kindly, 
tender, and sympathetic interest in his fellows generally, 
as in some way akin to, or a phase of, that unselfish out- 
going of the whole soul to another, in a ceaseless and 
unswerving affection, which alone is worthy of the name 
of friendship. But friendliness and friendship are sepa- 
rate and distinct attitudes of being. Friendliness may be 
exercised by one person toward a hundred, or a thou- 
sand, others alike. Friendship is in its very nature 
exceptional, and can find its exercise only toward those 
personalities to which for some reason it gives a pre- 
eminence. Cicero goes so far as to say that "scarcely 
in the history of the world are three or four pairs of 
friends mentioned by name ; " and, even before the days 
of Cicero, the Chinese had it for a maxim : " There are 
plenty of acquaintances in the world, but very few real 
friends." 

Aristotle recognizes the limitations and imitations of 
true friendship in his discrimination between friendship 
and friendliness or good-will. "Friendliness resembles 
friendship," he says, " and yet it is not friendship." 
Friendliness may, indeed, " be the beginning of friend- 
ship, in the same manner that the pleasure derived from 

7 



98 Limitations and Imitations. 

sight is the beginning of love : for no one feels love unless 
he is first pleased with personal appearance; but he who 
takes pleasure in the personal appearance is not neces- 
sarily in love. . . . Similarly, also, it is impossible to be 
friends without friendliness ; but those who have friendli- 
ness are not necessarily friends. . . . Hence, one might 
call friendliness, metaphorically speaking, friendship in a 
state of inactivity." That friendliness is, at the best, only 
an imitation of friendship, is suggested by Aristotle when 
he says : " Those who have many friends and are friendly 
with everybody, are by none thought to be their friend, 
except in a social sense ; and they are reckoned mere 
men-pleasers." And as to the limitations of friendship, 
Aristotle says : " It is not possible to be a friend to many 
men, on the footing of the perfect kind of friendship." 

It is true that Aristotle has been quoted as saying, 
" O my friends ! there are no friends." But this is a mis- 
quotation, which seems to have grown out of the error 
of a copyist in an early edition of " The Lives of the Phi- 
losophers," by Diogenes Laertius, continued in a series of 
editions, but corrected in the later ones. This error has 
come down to us in the literature of friendship, through 
Montaigne and others. The saying of Aristotle thus mis- 
quoted, is in the seventh book of his Ethics : " He who 
has many friends has no friend," — a very different sugges- 
tion from that in the words " There are no friends." 

Inspired wisdom is at one with speculative philosophy 
and poetic sentiment, in recognition of the contrast be- 
tween friendship in its limitations, and friendliness with 
its imitations of friendship. Yet even here the popular 
English mind has manifested its confusion over this line 



Limitations and Imitations, 99 

of distinction, in the translations of the Hebrew words 
distinguishing the two relations. 

For example, at Proverbs 18 : 24 our common English 
version has long read : 

" A man that hath friends must show himself friendly : 
And there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." 

The ordinary understanding of this has been, that a man 
who would have the benefits of friendship must exhibit 
the quality of friendliness ; and that out of many friends 
won in this way he may find one or more of rare lovable- 
ness and fidelity. In the Revised Version, however, this 
passage is rendered : 

"He that maketh many friends doeth it to his own destruction: 
But there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." 

The meaning here clearly is, that friendship with no 
limitations cannot have the gain of true friendship, while 
a true friendship within due limitations is the safest of 
all relations. 

Even this new translation fails to bring out the dis- 
tinction between friendliness and friendship as it is indi- 
cated in the original Hebrew. In the one case the word 
translated "friend" is re*a, meaning "neighbor," — our 
adjacent fellow-being, whom we must love as ourselves, 
against whom we must never bear false witness, and 
whose possessions we must not covet. In the other 
case, the word translated " friend " is ohebh, " one who 
loves." The one term suggests a nearness of body; the 
other, a nearness of soul. The passage might, indeed, 
be rendered : 



ioo Limitations and Imitations. 

" He that seeketh many companions, doeth it to his own destruction : 
But there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." 

It is a pity that the distinction between these two 
Hebrew terms is not brought out more clearly, in our 
English Bible, in such a way as to show that friendliness 
is quite another thing from friendship; for the Bible itself 
is too true to nature to ignore this fact In one instance, 
at least, the translators have felt compelled to recognize 
this distinction, which shows itself in the Hebrew all 
through the Old Testament. David says (Psa. 38 : 11): 

"My friends \ohabheem\ and my neighbors \re ( eeni\ stand aloof 
from my plague." 

Here our common English version reads : 

"My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore." 

A similar distinction is made at Psalm 88 : 18 : 

"Lover and friend hast thou put far from me." 

And so it might be all along the Bible text; for a real 
friend is always a lover, whereas a neighbor may be 
friendly to-day and unfrienaly to-morrow. Job's three 
" friends," by the way, were "neighbors," not "lovers." 

The Apocrypha sounds its warnings against the self- 
interested imitations of friendship : 

" Those living at peace with thee, let them be many; 
But thy counselors, one of a thousand. 
If thou wouldst get a friend, get him through testing, 
And be not hasty to trust in him. 
For many a one is friend in a time opportune for him, 
And will not abide in the day of thy affliction. 
And there is many a friend who is transformed into 
an enemy, 



Limitations and Imitations. 101 

And will reveal thy disgraceful strife. 

And many a one is friend as companion at table, 

And will not abide in the day of thy affliction. 

Yea, in thy prosperity he will be as thyself, 

And will speak roughly to thy servants. 

If thou be brought low he will be against thee, 

And will hide himself from thy face. 

Separate thyself from thine enemies, 

And be wary of thy friends." 

It is this teaching of the Son of Sirach that gives the sug- 
gestion of Claude Mermet's epigram : 

" Friends are like melons. Shall I tell you why ? 
To find one good you must a hundred try." 

And the world's experiences bear witness to its central 
truth that the imitations of friendship are as numerous as 
its highest attainment is rare. 

Let it not be supposed, however, that the essential 
limitations of the loftiest friendship restrict the possi- 
bilities of the most sincere and attractive friendliness, 
toward others near or remote, on the part of him who 
is a true friend at the highest and best toward one above 
all. A real friendship is uplifting and expanding, taking 
him who is the friend away from himself, and opening 
his heart in a generous love beyond the possibility of its 
closing or cramping. He, indeed, who is capable of the 
loftiest friendship, can easiest attain to the loftiest standard 
of affection in every relation in life, — as husband, father, 
son, brother, or neighbor. The love that reaches to the 
highest is not likely to come short of any mark below 
the highest ; and a love that is intensest at its focal center 
will glow with exceptional warmth from that center 



102 Limitations and Imitations. 

toward the extremest circumference. " Oh ! love one 
heart purely and warmly," says Jean Paul Richter ; "then 
thou lovest all hearts after it; and thy heart in its heaven 
sees, like the journeying sun, in all that it looks upon — 
from the dew-drop even to the ocean — nothing but mir- 
rors which it warms and fills." 

The limitations of friendship are in the possibilities of 
our nature to center our profoundest affections on an 
object, that is capable of calling them forth at their best. 
The imitations of friendship are in those affiliations and 
alliances that depend upon personal interest, or personal 
convenience, or personal fancy, and that change with 
changes in the parties to them, as a true friendship 
does not. 

But between the poorer imitations of a friendship, and 
a friendship at its highest and best, with its essential 
limitations in that sphere, there are gradations of genuine 
and joy-giving friendship. Even he who knows the full- 
est joy of soul-union with a true and congenial friend 
is sure to have that spirit of sympathetic friendliness 
which will cause him to be rightly counted as a friend 
by many ; and some of his minor friendships are likely 
to be so hearty and so generous that only he and one 
other will ever know that the difference between his one 
realest friendship and all his other friendships is a dif- 
ference in kind instead of a difference in degree. 

He, moreover, who has never realized the measure of 
the highest friendship, and to whom, by his very nature, 
such a measure of friendship is unattainable, may find a 
delight and an inspiration in the measure of friendship 
he does exercise, such as he gains by no other means of 



Limitations and Imitations. 1 03 

enjoyment and uplifting. And if such a man be unable 
to apprehend the absolute ideal of a transcendent friend- 
ship, he can at least be advantaged by his partial concep- 
tions of an unselfish affection, toward which he strives 
in all his friendships and his friendlinesses. 

While, as Solomon suggests, there is danger in an 
indiscriminate seeking of personal intimacies, there is a 
correspondent safeguard in the affection of hearts won 
through an unfailing friendliness of spirit. As the 
Oriental proverb has it : 

"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, 
And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere." 

"The more we love, the better we are," says Jeremy 
Taylor; "and the greater our friendships are, the dearer 
we are to God." And Wordsworth's counsel to a child is : 

"Of humblest friends, bright Creature! scorn not one." 

There are hearts, however, which, while never realizing 
the highest friendship in its limitations, would never be 
satisfied with the imitations of friendship. We live in a 
world where not every precious seed comes to full fruition. 
Some falls where there is not much earth, and its up- 
starting blades wither away from lack of soil-nourishment; 
some springs up only to have its new life choked out by 
the crowding thorns of the exacting world; yet other is 
trodden under foot by the careless passer along the way. 
And so it is that all the possibilities of a high and en- 
nobling friendship are sometimes missed through lack of 
opportunity of their fostering, through the crushing force 
of misunderstandings, or through the misrepresentations 



104 Limitations and Imitations. 

of outside parties; causing those who might have been 
the best and truest of friends to live without even the 
advantages of unbroken friendliness. 

"A word unspoken, a hand impressed, 
A look unseen, or a thought unguessed ; 

And souls that were kindred may live apart, 
Never to meet or to know the truth ; 

Never to know how heart beat with heart, 
In the dim past days of a wasted youth." 

Yet no love is ever wasted ; least of all can there be 
waste or loss in the love of an unselfish friendship. He 
whose heart swells or thrills with such a love, even while 
it aches with a sense of its misconception or its non-recog- 
nition, is himself the sure and permanent gainer from his 
loving ; whether his friendship be known as a friendship 
at its best with its essential limitations, or be looked upon 
by all as only one of the imitations of friendship. 





WHO CAN BE FRIENDS? 




Y whom are the privileges and possibilities 
of this highest and purest of human rela- 
tions, this unselfish, ever-outgoing, rever- 
ent and transcendent affection, attainable ? 
Who can be real friends, knowing the joy 
and sharing the gains of the best and truest friendship 
with all its limitations, and in contrast with its imitations ? 
Must friends be only of the one sex, or only of the other? 
or can they be of either or both? Is friendship at its 
highest necessarily limited to those who are not united 
by the ties of blood or marriage? or can it co-exist in 
its fulness with any and every sacred relation ? These 
are questions which press themselves on the heart and 
thought, and in the answer of which there would hardly 
be an instant agreement among all. 

Since the truest friendship is the purest and most un- 
selfish love, it follows that whoever is capable of such a 
love is capable of friendship. And those who love each 
other with such a love are friends, whatever be the bar- 

105 



106 Who can be Friends? 

riers between them, or whatever human relation be a bond 
of their union. 

Between man and man, all admit the possibility of the 
highest friendship. It is there that friendship has found 
its most notable historic and traditional illustrations. It 
is David and Jonathan, Orestes and Pylades, Damon and 
Pythias, Epaminondas and Pelopidas, Alexander and 
Hephsestion, Horace and Virgil, Pamphilus and Eusebius, 
Muhammad and Aboo Bekr, Roland and Oliver, Godfrey 
and Tancred, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventura, 
Erasmus and Colet, Luther and Melancthon, Sir Philip 
Sidney and Lord Brooke, Hampden and Pym, William 
of Orange and William Bentinck, Goethe and Schiller, 
Alfred Tennyson and Arthur Hallam. Few, again, would 
now question the reality of exalted and abiding friendship 
between woman and woman ; although classic writers 
were not always willing to admit its possibility, and many 
modern writers have adhered to the classic skepticism on 
this point. There is no more beautiful example of a self- 
forgetful and devoted friendship than that of Ruth and 
Naomi ; and in many an instance since their day, two 
women have been to each other dearer far than sisters. In 
the very nature of things the closest friendships of women 
are less prominent to the world's eye than the friendships 
of men ; but history has noted such illustrious examples 
as Queen Philippa and Philippa Picard, Mary Queen of 
Scots and Mary Seton, Queen Anne and the Duchess of 
Marlborough, Mme. de Stael and Mme. Recamier, Lady 
Dorothea Sydney and Lady Sophy Murray, Catharine 
Talbot and Elizabeth Carter, Lady Eleanor Butler and 
Miss Sarah Ponsonby, — known as " the Ladies of Llan- 



Who can be Friends? 107 

gollen," — Katherine Philips and Annie Owen, and others 

also: 

" For men have known 
No firmer friendships than the fair have shown." 

But because true friendship is love with the element of 
selfishness eliminated, because it is love apart from any 
relation which involves possession or the craving of pos- 
session, for that very reason friendship has found some 
of its choicest, its most refined, and its most unmistakable, 
illustrations between two persons of opposite sexes. And 
just here the truth in its purity has had most difficulty of 
securing acceptance, in consequence of the weakness and 
folly and wickedness of the world. Yet everywhere and 
always at this point the truth has had its recognition 
and its inspiring power in the hearts of the noblest and 
the most nobly aspiring of the children of men. 

In the far East, where woman has so generally occu- 
pied a lower plane in the opinions and estimates of man, 
and where the very marriage-bond has failed to give her 
equality by the side of him who has chosen her as his 
companion, — even there the most sacred, tender, and 
inviolable friendships between man and woman have 
been attained, and have commanded honor and admira- 
tion, in all the ages. 

In India such friendships are often sealed by the gift 
from the woman of a bracelet, which the man acknowl- 
edges by some appropriate gift in return. Life itself is of 
small account in comparison with this tie, in India, when 
once it is recognized ; and even religion is not more 
reverently guarded there. Yet in this relation either 
party or both parties may be married or be single, as 



108 Who can be Friends? 

circumstances shall ordain, and years perhaps will pass 
without either seeing the other. 

In Arabia, with all the jealous separation of the sexes, 
men and women have become one in the bond of holy 
friendship by sharing each other's blood ; and in such a 
case marriage would be deemed incest,- — hence the relation 
is of the purest and most unselfish nature. A similar 
state of facts is found in some portions of Africa; and 
there, as elsewhere, the tie of friendship thus formed be- 
tween persons of the two sexes transcends all other ties 
in its abiding and hallowed nobleness. 

The pre-eminent beauty and purity of such a friend- 
ship as this between man and woman underlay the phi- 
losophy of the truth-loving Plato, in his treatment of a 
possible affeclion uniting them without the weaknesses, or 
the self-seeking element, of ordinary loves. It would be 
a pity indeed if Christianity — in which " there is neither 
male nor female " as such — gave no instance of as pure and 
refined a love between men and women whose interests 
were not made identical in holy marriage, as was pointed 
out in pagan philosophy, and as is still realized among 
the primitive peoples of Africa and Asia. Nor has there 
been any lack of proof that Christianity represents the 
highest and holiest standard in this realm also of prac- 
tical ethics. 

Prominent in the records of the early Christian Church 
stand out the hearty and devoted personal friendships of 
St. Jerome and Paula, St. Chrysostom and Olympias, of St. 
Ambrose and Monica, and of others hardly less illustri- 
ous. So all the way down along the later centuries, even 
the cynic and the scoffer have had words of admiring 



Who can be Friends? 109 

approval for such friendships of this nature as those of 
St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare, Michael Angelo and 
Vittoria Colonna, John Locke and Lady Masham, Dr. 
Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, William Cowper and Mary 
Unwin, Fenelon and Mme. Guion,Wilhelm von Humboldt 
and Charlotte Diede, Lacordaire and Mme. Swetchine, 
and many like these in every land, which have furnished 
illustration of the truth that no love is truer, and none 
more tender, more abiding, or more admirable, than a 
sacred sexless friendship. 

While friendship is not the love which is an immediate 
outgrowth of, or which necessarily pivots on, a relation 
by kinship or by marriage, such a relation is certainly no 
barrier to the existence of that unselfish and sexless love 
which is the essence of the truest and purest friendship. 
Brothers and sisters are not friends merely by loving each 
other as brothers and sisters ; but they can be friends 
over and above, if not on account of, their fraternal rela- 
tionship. So with parents and children, with husbands 
and wives, with lovers and loved ones, — friendship is 
possible between them ; but that friendship must ever be 
a measure of love over and above that love which is of 
the relation that formally binds them to each other. No 
love can fairly be counted the love which is friendship, 
unless it could exist at its fullest and best either with or 
without the binding force of any other relation than simple 
friendship. 

History abounds with illustrations, actual and mythical, 
of close friendships within the various relations formed by 
family alliance. Castor and Pollux are not only brothers 
by birth ; they are more than brothers in friendship. If 



no Who can be Friends f 

Castor must die, immortality is no joy to Pollux. So 
essential is each friend to the other, that the gods permit 
them to share each other's destiny, dying and reviving 
day by day, in turn ; and their prominence in the heav- 
enly constellations is as the twins by friendship, not as 
the twins by birth. The two Scipios and the two Grac- 
chi are friends as well as brothers, and the loving friend- 
ship of Publius Rutilius and his brother is given special 
prominence in the writings of Pliny. 

In a noteworthy monograph on "Friendships of Women," 
W. R. Alger has brought together many examples of 
memorable friendships between mothers and sons, between 
daughters and fathers, between sisters and brothers, be- 
tween mothers and daughters, between sisters, and between 
wives and husbands ; as well as between women and men, 
and women and women, whose bond of closest friendship 
was their only common bond. St. Augustine and his 
mother, St. Monica; Cicero and his daughter Tullia; 
George Herbert and his mother, Lady Magdalen ; Mme. 
de Sevigne and her daughter, Mme. de Grignan ; Mme. 
de Stael and her father, M. Necker; Mme. Guizot and 
her illustrious son, Francois Pierre Guillaume ; Mrs. 
Hemans and her mother, Mrs. Browne; Richard Edge- 
worth and his daughter Maria; Sara Coleridge and her 
daughter Sara; Aaron Burr and his daughter Theodosia, 
— are instances of friendship between parents and children 
whose " kinship becomes friendship," and in whom " the 
relative is hidden in the friend." 

Apollo and Diana, like Castor and Pollux, are twins 
in friendship as well as twins by birth ; and Orestes and 
Ele6lra stand out in their companionship as loving friends 



Who can be Friends f 1 1 1 

rather than in their dutifulness as brother and sister. 
The joint canonization of St. Benedict and St. Scholas- 
tica bears even more emphatic witness to the love which 
united them in a sacred friendship than to the tie which 
had bound them through their birth from the same mother. 
And how many brothers and sisters have gained a higher 
plane and a nobler place through their becoming friends ! 
Bishop Burnet said of Catherine, Countess of Ranelagh, 
and her brother Robert Boyle, the eminent experimental 
philosopher : " Such a sister became such a brother ; 
and it was but suitable to both their characters, that they 
should have improved the relation under which they were 
born, to the more exalted and endearing one of 'friend!' 
And a similar record of progress from mere fraternal 
affection to the truest and most devoted friendship might 
be made of Philip and Mary Sidney, of William and Caro- 
line Herschel, of Ernest and Charlotte Schleiermacher, 
of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, of Charles and Mary 
Lamb, of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, and of 
many another well-known and affectionate brother and 
sister ; or again of devoted sisters, such as Hannah and 
Martha More, or Charlotte, Anne, and Emily Bronte. 

If a husband be truly the friend of his wife, — as he 
ought to be, — his love for her as a friend could be just as 
strong, just as tender, just as permanent and unswerving, 
if she were not his wife nor ever might be. It is such a 
friendship as this which gives a superadded joy — in its 
then abounding opportunities and unhindered privileges 
of freest expression — to the rarest blessings attainable in 
the closest and holiest of all human companionships. 

A gleam of such wedded friendship would seem to 



112 Who can be Friends f 

show itself in the records of Mausolus and Artemisia, of 
Shah Jehan and Nour Jehan, of Seneca and Paulina, of 
Giambattista Zappi and Faustina Maratti, of M. and 
Mme. Roland, of Julius Mohl and Mary Clarke, of 
Herder and his Caroline, of John and Lucy Hutchinson, 
of John Flaxman and Ann Denman, of Sir William and 
Lady Hamilton, of Baron Bunsen and Frances Wadding- 
ton, of Earl and Lady Beaconsfield, of John Stuart Mill 
and Mrs. Taylor, of Charles Kingsley and Fanny Grenfell, 
of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, of William 
Ewart Gladstone and Catherine Glynne, and of many an- 
other " happy couple . . . making one life double, because 
they made a double life one." 

Wilhelm von Humboldt was a model friend as a friend, 
in his constancy and unswerving attachment. And this 
spirit of friendship showed itself in his married life as 
well as in his other spheres of affection. "When he had 
attained the certainty that Caroline von Dacheroden was 
to be his wife," says his biographer, " he immediately 
made the vow to make her happy under any circum- 
stances ; " not to seek his own happiness, nor yet to seek 
the mutual happiness of the two, but to live for her hap- 
piness, as her true friend. " He never forgot this vow 
during his whole life, and fulfilled it faithfully to the best 
of his ability." When, soon after his marriage, his wife's 
life was in imminent peril, he deliberately purposed suicide, 
and "gave as a reason for his suicidal purpose, that he 
could not tell whether the beloved one might not stand in 
need of him in the future life." Not that he must seek 
her society for his own sake, in another world, but that 
he must be at hand in the hope of yet serving her there. 






Who can be Friends ? 113 

She recovered, however, and "during the long years 
that his wife lived with him on earth, and constituted his 
greatest happiness, this zeal continued in every circum- 
stance of life, to the complete negation and forgetfulness 
of self, sacrificing even privileges which would seem in- 
separable from such an excess of love." He was all the 
more a friend to his wife through being meanwhile so 
truly and purely a friend to a woman whom he knew 
before he was a lover or a husband. 

A true friendship between a husband and a wife may 
precede the love which led to their marriage union, or, 
again, it may follow that love as the choicest of its inci- 
dental results ; but whether it come earlier or later than 
mere wedded love as such, there, as everywhere, the love 
which is friendship transcends all other loves. Of the 
friendship which follows wedded love as the richest bless- 
ing of a marriage union, Chateaubriand, writing of the 
danger of a diminution of the power of love by " the fever 
of time, which produces lassitude, dissipates illusion, 
undermines our passions, withers our loves, and changes 
our hearts even as it changes our locks and years," says 
earnestly : " There is but one exception to this human 
infirmity. There sometimes occurs in a strong soul a 
love firm enough to transform itself into impassioned 
friendship, so as to become a duty, and appropriate the 
qualities of virtue. Then, neutralizing the weakness of 
nature, it acquires the immortality of a principle." 

Of the friendship which precedes wedded love, and 
which shines transcendent through and above it, no bet- 
ter description is needed than that supplied in the grace- 
ful dedication to her husband, of a volume of her poems, 



H4 Who can be Friends ? 

by one who has written with a woman's tenderness and 
a woman's truth : 

"A year ago to-day, love, for the space 

Of a brief, sudden moment, richly fraught 
With deeper meaning than our light hearts thought, 
You held my hand and looked into the face 
Which, poor in gifts, has since by God's good grace 
Grown dear to you ; and the full year has brought 
Friendship, and love, and marriage ; yet has taught 
My heart to call you in its sacred place 
Still by the earliest name ; — for you who are 
My lover and my husband, and who bring 
Heaven close around me, will not let me cling 
To that near heaven ; but tempt my soul afar 
By your ideals for me ; — till life end, 
My calm, dispassionate, sincerest friend." 1 

Wherever there is a pure and unselfish love for another 
for that other's own sake, a love contingent neither on its 
return nor on its recognition, tliere is a true friendship, 
whether there be any other relation than this between 
the loving and the loved, or not Friendship is, in fact, 
distinct from even the choicest other relationship with 
which it may coexist. 

1 Alice Wellington Rollins. 




II. 

FRIENDSHIP IN HISTORY. 




OF SURPASSING POTENCY. 




|HE world's history is the history of indi- 
viduals whom God has used in the helping 
forward of the world's progress. Every 
epoch of history has its center in some 
man who, for the time being, is the em- 
bodiment of the mental and moral forces that are making 
and marking that epoch. And, back of the man who is 
the leader of men, there is always the special force of 
that sentiment which influences and impels him in the 
direction of his providential leading. Hence it follows 
that the sentiment which is most potent as a factor in 
man's best being and doing is most potent as a factor 
in the world's highest achieving and truest progress. 

Ambition and avarice and love are known to have 
power over men in every field of human endeavor, and 
patriotism and religion are recognized as supreme incite- 
ments to self-denying efforts on the part of the children 
of men. But friendship is a sentiment that transcends 
all loves, and that represents the purest, the most self- 

117 



1 1 8 Of Surpassing Potency. 

abnegating, and the noblest affection, in a man's relations 
to his fellows, to his country, and to his God; and there- 
fore the sentiment of friendship is, in its nature, of sur- 
passing potency in swaying those persons who, in their 
generation, are enabled to sway the forces of the living 
world. It is the master-passion of humanity. 

This is not a matter of unprovable theory ; on the 
contrary, it is one capable of illustration and proof out 
of all the pages of human history. In the councils of 
state, in the clash of arms, in the molding of social cus- 
toms, in the aspirations of religious endeavor, in the 
movements of civil reform, in the researches of philo- 
sophic thought, in the creations of literature and art, 
and in every other realm of thinking or doing, friend- 
ship has evidenced itself as an element of character- 
shaping and character-swaying, beyond any other senti- 
ment or passion that shows itself as a factor in controlling 
and directing the human mind and heart. 

Friendship has, in all ages, shown its power to re- 
strain ambition, to hold avarice in check, to triumph over 
selfish love, to render more wisely effective the best in- 
stincts of patriotism, and to give increased purity and 
sacredness to religious thought and feeling and action. 
Friendship has had its strongest hold on those who were 
strongest, and has done its best work in the best natures. 
Not the base but the nobler, not the low but the lofty, 
not the dependent but the self-contained, in all spheres 
of life, seem to value most, and to be best fitted for, the 
gains and privileges and responsibilities of friendship. 
And therefore it is that friendship is most potent with 
those whose potency with others is greatest. 



Of Surpassing Potency. 119 

No new suggestion is this ; it is a truth of the ages. 
" To the rich, and to those who possess office and 
authority," says Aristotle, " there seems to be an espe- 
cial need of friends." Similarly Cicero affirms: "Just 
in proportion as a man has most confidence in himself, 
and as he is most completely fortified by worth and 
wisdom, so that he needs no one's assistance, and feels 
that all his resources reside in himself, — in the same pro- 
portion is he most highly distinguished for seeking out 
and forming friendships." Of the upward outlook that 
promotes the exercise of this sentiment, Jean Paul 
Richter says earnestly : " When man stands before the 
sea, and on mountains, and before pyramids and ruins, 
and in the presence of misfortune, and feels himself 
exalted, then does he stretch out his arms after the 
great friendship." 

And of the spirit and character that incline one to 
friendship, Sir Thomas Browne, acute observer of his 
fellows, says positively : " This noble affection falls not 
on vulgar and common constitutions, but on such as are 
marked for virtue; " similarly, the keen-witted La Bruyere 
declares : " Pure friendship is something which men of 
an inferior nature can never taste ; " while great-hearted 
Charles Kingsley asseverates : " It is only the great- 
hearted who can be true friends : the mean and cow- 
ardly can never know what true friendship means." The 
possibilities and the needs of friendship are largest in the 
nature of those whose position and personal characters 
make them more influential over their fellows and over 
their surroundings. 

In an effort to test the correctness of this estimate of 



120 



Of Surpassing Potency. 



the lessons of history, it will obviously suffice to pass 
rapidly from mountain-peak to mountain-peak of the 
world's historic panorama, and to note in passing the 
personal friendships which had their share in uprearing 
or in capping those lofty summits. Such a survey is 
now to be attempted ; and the claim is confidently made 
that it will disclose unmistakably the surpassing potency 
of human friendship in the world's essential forces. 





INFLUENCING ROYALTY. 




INGS are raised above their fellow-men, but 
they cannot be raised above their own 
*yiD)il^ill? nianhood. And while a king - is a man, 
a king cannot but find a joy and a gain 
in loving and being loved. Having so 
many under him, a king must crave the privilege of 
having at least one alongside of him, or one to whom 
he may in some sense look up. Accustomed to expect 
everything that he longs for, a king will seek some means 
of gratifying his instinctive desire for disinterested fellow- 
ship and sympathy. 

Bacon, dwelling upon the help and comfort of freely 
opening one's heart to a friend, points out the fact that 
royalty is peculiarly ready to avail itself of this privilege. 
" It is a strange thing to observe," he says, " how high a 
rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of 
friendship : ... so great as they purchase it, many times, 
at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For 
princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from 

121 



122 Influencing Royalty. 

that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this 
fruit except (to make themselves capable thereof) they 
raise some persons to be, as it were, companions and 
almost equals to themselves ; which, many times, sorteth 
to inconvenience." And the world's history abounds in 
illustrations of the truth thus hinted at by Bacon. 

Earliest among the kings mentioned in the Bible record 
is Nimrod, ruler of a kingdom in the " Land of Shinar." 
Prominent among the recovered traditions of ancient 
Babylonia is the story of King Izdubar, identified by 
many with the Nimrod of Bible history. And the story 
of this primeval king is the story of a king seeking, 
finding, rejoicing in, and afterwards mourning over, a 
loved and loving friend. Izdubar was in need of counsel. 
He had heard of Eabani, famed for his wisdom and worth. 
Izdubar sought Eabani, who was living a hermit life in 
the wilderness. After repeated trials, and through heroic 
struggles, Izdubar secured Eabani as a friend ; and the 
two entered into a covenant of eternal brotherhood, 
under the third sign of the Zodiac, — thenceforward 
known as the Gemini, the brother -friends. In the 
bonds of a sacred friendship, Izdubar and Eabani 
wrought deeds of valor and prowess that lifted their 
names high above their fellows ; and together they 
were in conflict with enemies celestial and terrestrial. 
But death came to Eabani, and his mourning friend 
Izdubar could not be comforted, until, in pity for his 
grief, the god Ea brought back to him Eabani, in order 
that the friendship which had been so much to the king 
might be the king's forever. And thus, in the very 
earliest records of a kingly life among men, there is 



Influencing Royalty. 123 

the story, ever old and ever new, of the inspiring and 
pervasive power of a sacred friendship as a main factor 
in the aspirations and achievements of royalty. It is only, 
however, because we have no specific records of history 
prior to the days of Nimrod, that Nimrod, as Izdubar, is 
the earliest known sovereign-friend. 

Ancient Egypt furnishes completer records of the re- 
mote past than are found outside of the Bible text. The 
most ancient of these records show us that the highest 
title known in the court of the Pharaohs was that of 
" The One Friend," — a designation applied to the intimate 
and loved companion of the king, who was the sharer of 
his affection and confidence to an extent unknown in 
any other relation. The term " friend " was applied to 
quite a number of persons who held high position in 
the king's favor; but this term, "The One Friend," was 
confined to one who stood all by himself in loving union 
with the king. And "The One Friend" was nearer and 
dearer to the king than wife or parent, than prince or 
priest. 

An inscription in a tomb at Abydos tells the story of 
Una, who was The One Friend of Pharaoh Merira Pepi, 
a king of the sixth dynasty, before the days of Abraham. 
This inscription is " one of the oldest historical texts 
known " and, like the earliest texts from Babylonia, it is 
the record of friendship's potency in the realm of royalty. 
Telling of his uplifting by the king's choice above all 
the servants and ministers and friends of the king, Una 
says, in this inscription : " It happened that my wisdom 
pleased his Majesty, and that also my zeal pleased his 
Majesty, and that also the heart of his Majesty zvas satisfied 



124 Influencing Royalty. 

with me!' Una was even dearer to the king than the 
king's " great royal wife Amitsi," and when the latter 
came under suspicion, Una was commissioned by the 
king to go alone into the royal hareem, and ascertain 
the truth in the case, " because," again says Una, " the 
heart of his Majesty was satisfied with me!' In peace and 
in war, the king Merira leaned on and loved his one friend 
Una ; and the glory of the king's reign corresponded 
with the fidelity of the king's friendship. Una was sure 
that there had never been anything like this before; 
although, as a matter of fact, it was just what had been, 
and what would be, simply because a king's heart is 
human, and, with sovereign as with subject, friendship 
transcends all loves. 

There is, indeed, reason for believing that Joseph, the 
son of Jacob, was chosen as The One Friend of Pharaoh, 
when he was taken from the prison to the palace, long 
centuries after the days of Merira and Una. When Joseph 
had made clear to the king the interpretation of his 
dream, and had disclosed to him the secrets of the future, 
the heart of Pharaoh seemed to go out toward Joseph in 
trustful affection. "And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, 
Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all this, there is 
none so discreet and wise as thou : thou shalt be over 
my house, and according unto thy word shall my house 
be ruled : only in the throne will I be greater than thou. 
. . . And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and 
without thee shall no man lift up his hand or his foot in 
all the land of Egypt." When Joseph told his brethren 
of God's dealings with him, he said, as our English version 
has it: "He hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord 



Influencing Royalty. 125 

of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt." 
The word here translated " father " is, by some scholars, 
thought to refer, in this place, to this relation of intimate 
or confidential friend, — a relation which had pre-eminence 
in the court of the kings of Egypt from the earliest days 
of Egypt's history. 

This relation of intimate friend to the king was con- 
tinued, among the Hebrews, to the days of David and 
Solomon, when Ahithophel, as afterwards Hushai, was 
the "own familiar friend" of David, and " Zabud the son 
of Nathan was chief minister, the king's friend," in the 
court of Solomon. And who can estimate the importance 
to the world of those royal friendships in Egypt and 
Palestine, from the days of Merira to Solomon ? 

China would claim a rivalry with Egypt in its antiq- 
uity ; and its sovereigns have held themselves more 
proudly above their people than the most exalted of the 
Pharaohs. But friendship has shown itself in its peer- 
less supremacy in China as in Egypt and Assyria. 
Mencius, a Chinese philosopher of more than twenty 
centuries ago, illustrates his claim of the duty and beauty 
of friendship by a reference to the power of this senti- 
ment in the heart of royalty in China's golden age. 
Long before the days of Joseph in Egypt, a Chinese 
emperor named Yao loved as a friend an untitled but 
wise and worthy citizen named Shun. Yao so loved his 
friend Shun that he heaped honors upon him, gave him 
one of his daughters in marriage, invited him to the 
royal court, put at his disposal the second palace of roy- 
alty, and then visited him in that palace. "Alternately," 
says Mencius of the Emperor, " he was host and guest. 



126 Influencing Royalty. 

Here was the Emperor maintaining friendship with a 
private man." Because of Yao's friendship with Shun, 
Shun became Yao's associate and then his successor on 
the throne of the Middle Kingdom. Shun is supposed 
to have been a contemporary of Abraham; and, in the 
veneration of countless millions in China, in all the gene- 
rations from that day until now, Shun, the loved friend 
of the Son of Heaven, has had hardly a lower place than 
that accorded by the descendants of Abraham to him 
whose highest honor was that he was called the Friend 
of God. 

Coming down along the ages, we find a new era of 
government inaugurated in the reign of Alexander of 
Macedon, when first a great sovereign and conqueror 
gave distinct recognition to moral and social influences 
in the sway of empire. And we see that he who con- 
quered the world was himself held captive in the bonds of 
a devoted friendship. Alexander the Great was a pupil 
of Aristotle, who gave such prominence to the privilege 
and responsibilities of friendship; and the principles em- 
phasized in the teachings of the great philosopher found 
expression in the better nature of the great ruler. No 
one thing in the story of Alexander's life shows him at 
such an advantage, personally, as the exhibit of his un- 
wavering trust in his physician-friend Philip, when he had 
been told that that friend was conspiring to poison him. 
And he who could thus trust a friend could be a friend. 

Obviously, no personal influence had such power over 
Alexander's feelings and conduct as his friendship with 
Craterus and Hephaestion. He declared that these 
"were the two men that he loved best in the world;" 



Influencing Royalty. 127 

and of the distinction which he made between the two 
Plutarch says : " He loved Hephaestion and respe6led 
Craterus above all the rest of his friends, and was wont 
to say that Hephaestion loved [the man] Alexander, but 
that Craterus loved [Alexander] the king." Quintius 
Curtius says of Hephaestion, that " he was by far the 
dearest of all the king's friends, meeting the king himself 
on equal terms, and being master of all his secrets. He 
had also a like liberty of admonishing the king." Alex- 
ander's friendship with Hephaestion became more and 
more a controlling force in the life of Alexander. It 
is said that "when he went forth to the East, to make 
Hellenic civilization the common possession of the world, 
Alexander desired to renew in his own friendship with 
Hephaestion the pattern that heroic times had bequeathed 
in Achilles and Patroclus." In his case, as many times 
before and since, the sentiment of friendship was a sway- 
ing force in the power that swayed the world. 

When Hephaestion was dead, the joy of Alexander 
was at an end, and the waning of his power had begun. 
" Alexander's grief for him," says Plutarch, "exceeded 
all reasonable measure. He ordered the manes of all the 
horses and mules to be cut off in sign of mourning ; he 
struck off the battlements of all the neighboring cities ; 
he crucified the unhappy physician [who had been unable 
to save the sick man] ; and he would not permit the flute 
or any other musical instrument to be played through- 
out his camp, until a response came from the oracle of 
Ammon, bidding him honor Hephaestion, and offer sac- 
rifice to him as to a hero." The entire male population 
of a conquered tribe was offered by Alexander in sacrifice 



128 Influencing Royalty. 

to the spirit of Hephaestion. Then Alexander determined 
to outdo all the works of man in a costly monument to 
his lamented friend. He summoned architects and engi- 
neers to aid him in this undertaking; and among the 
plans considered by him was the carving of Mt. Athos 
itself into a mighty statue of him whom he loved. But 
the moving force of Alexander's mind was no longer kept 
in equilibrium by the controlling influence of a living 
friend ; he grew restless and suspicious and timid, and 
it was not long before he lay down to die. 

As with the older empires of the East, so with the 
empire of ancient Rome ; its highest summit of sover- 
eignty was capped by the aid of friendship, in the person 
of one who felt the inspiring force of a friend's unselfish 
devotion. Rome's greatest glory was attained in the 
reign of him who is known as Augustus Caesar, but 
whose earliest name was Caius 06lavius ; and the story 
of his elevation to supreme authority is a story of friend- 
ship's potency. 06lavius was a grand-nephew of Julius 
Caesar. In his early youth he won the friendship of a 
fellow-youth, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, of his own age, 
but much his inferior in family and social status. This 
friendship was the making of Ocliavius. The two friends 
were at school together in Apollonia when they heard 
of the assassination of Julius Caesar. They were barely 
nineteen years of age. Away from the capital, with no 
advantage of position or experience, assured only that 
the enemies of his family were for the time triumphant, 
young Ocliavius might well have thought first of his own 
safety and of the hopelessness of any move for the re- 
trieving of his family fortunes ; nor were cautious coun- 



Influencing Royalty, 129 

selors lacking to warn him against the folly of turning his 
face Rome-ward. Then it was that his young friend 
showed himself a friend indeed. Agrippa urged 06la- 
vius to hasten to the capital and assert his rights, prom- 
ising to accompany him and stand by him. His action, 
in accordance with this counsel of friendship, was the 
beginning of Octavius's progress to power. Hearing, 
near Brundisium, that he had been named in the will of 
his grand-uncle as his heir, young Octavius, cheered and 
strengthened by his friend's presence and counsel, boldly 
assumed the name of Octavianus Caesar, and pushed on 
to Rome to assert his claim to the succession. He found 
Mark Antony in possession of power, with no thought 
of surrendering it to the young heir of the dead Caesar, 
while senators and nobles were little inclined to follow 
his lead for his name's sake. 

The struggle for the mastery began, and the strength 
of Agrippa's friendship for Octavianus proved the 
strength of Octavianus in his claim of a right to be 
the world's ruler. "We know that Agrippa's courage 
never wavered," says a historian, " though Octavianus 
seemed at times ready to falter and draw back. To the 
many-sided activity of Agrippa, and to his unfailing reso- 
lution, the success of that enterprise seems mainly due. 
He was the great general of the cause that triumphed, 
the hero of every forlorn hope, and the knight-errant 
for every hazardous adventure in distant regions." 
Agrippa had an important share in defeating the land 
forces of Luke Antony at Perusia, of Mark Antony at 
Sipontum, and of the Aquitani in Gaul. He pushed on 
victoriously into Germany. Recalled to Italy by the 

9 



130 Influencing Royalty. 

peril of his friend from the fleets of Pompey, Agrippa 
made a harbor for a navy by connecting Lake Avernus 
and the Lucrine Lake with the sea, and then organized, 
equipped, and trained a navy there, for competition with 
the naval forces of the world. He won victories on the 
sea at Mylae and at Naulochus, thus securing protection 
to the Mediterranean borders of the Roman Empire. 
After this he won the final victory over the fleets of 
Mark Antony at Actium, which " fixed the empire of the 
world on Octavianus." 

Three times Agrippa was chosen consul. Again he was 
chosen aedile, with the responsibility for the public works 
of the city; and in that position he built and repaired 
aqueducts and other public works, and did much to jus- 
tify the subsequent claim of 06lavianus that he found 
Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble. In com- 
memoration of his victory at A6lium, whereby he had 
secured the world's throne to his friend, Agrippa erected 
the Pantheon, which stands to-day as a memorial of the 
power of a sacred friendship. It was in recognition of the 
glory won so largely by the ability and faithfulness of 
Agrippa, that the Roman Senate accorded to Octavianus 
Caesar the unique title of "Augustus," and named after 
him the sixth month of the Roman year. Agrippa was 
no less successful as a civil ruler than as a military com- 
mander. His administrative skill was displayed all the 
way along from Gaul to Syria, and he was left by the 
emperor in charge of Rome during his temporary ab- 
sence. He is said, indeed, to have been " the greatest 
military commander of Rome since the days of Julius 
Caesar, and the most honest Roman governor in any 



Influencing Royalty. 131 

province." From first to last, Agrippa was unswervingly 
loyal as a friend, and Augustus was royal enough to 
realize this. Agrippa married the daughter of Augustus. 
Had he outlived the emperor, he would probably have 
succeeded him on the throne. After his death, two of 
his sons were named by Augustus as his heirs; but they 
also died before the emperor, and the succession was 
secured to Tiberius. The world's history centers in the 
reign of Augustus Caesar. It was in that reign that the 
Friend of friends was born among the sons of men. And, 
next to that supreme event in the Augustan Age, there 
stands out in its beauty and power the friendship of the 
royal Augustus with the loyal Agrippa. 

Even sovereigns who were themselves incapable of 
inspiring or enjoying a noble and self-abnegating friend- 
ship have been impressed, and hence influenced, by the 
unselfish devotedness of friends. Thus Dionysius, the 
tyrant of Syracuse, is said to have realized the emptiness 
of all his possessions of honor and power in comparison 
with the mutual love of Damon and Pythias, and to have 
been moved, as he gave them their lives anew, to entreat 
from them the privilege of being a sharer in the bond of 
their friendship. Similar, and yet better, is the story of 
Nooman III., a king in Arabia in the fifth century of our 
era, who, from being a tyrant and an idolater, was made a 
convert to Christianity through "witnessing the devoted 
friendship of a Christian Arab, who had pledged himself 
to undergo the punishment intended to be inflicted on 
his friend, should the latter fail to return at the time 
appointed," — as in the case of Damon and Pythias, long 
centuries before. 



132 Influencing Royalty. 

A sovereign of sovereigns in Europe, at the close of 
the eighth and the beginning of the ninth century, was 
the Emperor Charles the Great, or Charlemagne. His 
reign was the beginning of a new order of things in 
Europe. He gave to religion and learning a new place 
and power in the world's governing, as over against the 
blind force of military despotisms. And the best work 
of this sovereign was largely influenced and shaped by 
his friendship with Alcuin, an English Christian scholar. 
Alcuin was one of the best informed men of his age, and 
one of the most remarkable. It was while on a journey 
from England to Rome, in 781, that he met King Charles 
at Parma, and won his friendship. At the royal invita- 
tion, Alcuin made his home at the court, and was brought 
into pleasant relations with the king's wife and children 
as well as with the king himself. During this period a 
good beginning of schools in the growing empire was 
made, and plans for yet better things were in discussion. 
Moved by a spirit of patriotism, Alcuin desired to return 
to England, in order to promote the educational interests 
receiving new attention there. But, as a biographer of 
Alcuin says : "Charlemagne knew too well how to value 
a man like Alcuin to be willing to lose him, and prized 
too dearly the rare happiness of possessing a true and 
sincere friend not to desire his longer and, if possible, 
permanent residence, and to offer everything that might 
induce him to remain." Hence, after a brief absence in 
England, Alcuin returned to the court of his royal friend, 
and passed the remainder of his useful life there. 

As showing the bearing of this friendship of Alcuin 
and Charles the Great on the king's life-work, one of 



Influencing Royalty. 133 

the latest biographers of the latter says, concerning the 
former : " His relations to Charles were intimate, cor- 
dial, and confidential. One can hardly err in ascribing to 
him all the theological documents and writings inter- 
blended with the political growth and development of 
the Frankish Empire in that reign ; the theology of 
Charles; the theology, and probably much of the juris- 
prudence, of the Capitularies. To his influence must be 
traced some of the enlightened views of Charles ; the 
mercy, the lofty aims, and the ethical apothegms, so 
remarkable in the life and speech of that remarkable 
monarch. . . . Alcuin . . . influenced his age by his writ- 
ings, his teaching, and the force of his virtuous example, 
and conferred a lasting benefit on mankind at a time 
when darkness covered the mind of the world and thick 
darkness the liberal arts." In fact, the face of history 
was changed, and the welfare of mankind for future gen- 
erations was promoted by the friendship of Alcuin and 
Charles the Great. 

Next after Charles the Great, in the extent of his empire 
and in the importance of his reign as a European sover- 
eign, down along the centuries, was Charles the Fifth, the 
foremost soldier of his age, and a ruler of world-wide 
influence in the stormy days of the sixteenth century. 
Despotic and self-willed though he was, he did not lack 
a measure of responsiveness to the thoughts and feelings 
of one whom he selected as a close personal friend, and 
to whom he opened his heart in an exceptional confidence. 
It was a young page in his court whom the emperor 
chose as his friend ; and the choice was a deliberate one, 
he priding himself, not without reason, " on his power of 



134 Influencing Royalty. 

reading anti of using men." While yet but fifteen years 
old, this page, as Motley tells us, "was the intimate, 
almost confidential, friend of the emperor;" and, as the 
years went on, the intimacy and friendship were closer 
and closer. " The youth was so constant an attendant 
upon his imperial chief, that, even when interviews with 
the highest personages, and upon the gravest affairs, were 
taking place, Charles would never suffer him to be con- 
sidered superfluous or intrusive. There seemed to be no 
secrets which the emperor held too high for the compre- 
hension of his page." Nor was it merely as a confidant 
that this friend was valued by the emperor. Before he 
was twenty-one, he was appointed general -in -chief of 
the army on the French frontier, to be over against such 
soldiers as Admiral Coligny and the Due de Nevers ; and 
the issue seemed to justify this appointment. When, 
finally, the emperor decided to abdicate his throne, he 
must have that loved friend by his side ; and the young 
soldier was recalled from the frontier to stand in the 
presence of the august assemblage at Brussels, while the 
crippled emperor leaned affectionately upon his shoulder 
as he read his message of imperial farewell. 

That such a friendship had its influence on the rule 
of the emperor who rejoiced in it so greatly would 
scarcely be questioned ; but that the influence of that 
friendship was potent in the life and rule of him whom 
it distinguished, when he himself became a ruler of men, 
— as "William the Silent," the founder of the Dutch 
Republic, — is quite as evident. It was while Prince 
William was the young page and friend of the Emperor 
Charles that he gained his first lessons in statecraft, while 



Influencing Royalty. 135 

observing the interviews of others with the emperor, and 
in his personal conferences with his imperial friend. 
" His perceptive and reflective faculties, naturally of 
remarkable keenness and depth, thus acquired," says 
Motley, a "precocious and extraordinary development. 
He was brought up behind the curtain of that great 
stage where the world's dramas were daily enacted. 
The machinery and the masks which produced the 
grand delusions of history had no deceptions for him." 
And Motley adds, that, " carefully to observe men's 
actions, and silently to ponder upon their motives, was 
the favorite occupation of the prince during his appren- 
ticeship at court." Moving on in the direction of impulses 
given to him in the atmosphere of the emperor's friend- 
ship, and in the exercise of powers developed through 
the partialities of that friendship, Prince William was 
instrumental in liberating the Netherlands from Spanish 
tyranny and in laying the foundations of a great republic. 
He stood for a time as the bulwark of Protestant Chris- 
tianity, and he was first among the royal rulers of men 
to administer civil government on the principle of reli- 
gious toleration. Loved royally by his ruler in his early 
life, he was royally loved by those whom he ruled in his 
maturer years. "As long as he lived he was the guiding 
star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little 
children cried in the streets." 

A century after William the Silent, one of his descend- 
ants came into prominence as a ruler of men under the 
name of William Henry, Prince of Orange and Count 
of Nassau, and afterwards as King of England — first 
as co-sovereign with Mary, and then by himself. That 



136 Influencing Royalty. 

he was a power in the world — through having "a 
greater part in shaping the destinies of modern England 
than any of her native sovereigns " — is as evident in his- 
tory as that a close personal friendship was a potent factor 
in his life as a ruler. It was while he was still in his 
early manhood, in Holland, that Prince William Henry 
was taken ill with malignant small-pox. In that time of 
his peril, young William Bentinck, who loved him for 
his own sake, devoted himself to his nursing, and was 
the means of saving a royal life. "Whether Bentinck 
slept or not, while I was ill, I know not," said the Prince, 
in referring to this experience. " But this I know, that, 
through sixteen days and nights, I never once called for 
anything but that Bentinck was instantly by my side." 
Bentinck gave the sick prince his food and medicine, 
and helped him to rise or lie down, watching him, mean- 
while, with unfailing tenderness. Only when the prince 
was finally convalescent did Bentinck turn to his home 
to lie down with the same disease, and to battle it 
through in a determination to be again at the service 
of his royal friend in whatever perils beset him. 

From that time onward the intercourse of the two 
friends was close and confidential to the last degree. 
The prince counseled with Bentinck in affairs of state, 
and shared with him his personal joys and sorrows. He 
showed the warmest interest in the family affairs of his 
friend. When a son was born to Bentinck, the prince 
wrote : " He will live, I hope, to be as good a. fellow as 
you are ; and, if I should have a son, our children will 
love each other, I hope, as we have done." When Ben- 
tinck's wife was sick, in her husband's absence, the prince 



Influencing Royalty. 137 

snatched time from pressing cares of state to despatch 
special messengers, several times a day, with messages 
concerning her condition ; and it was " with tears of joy " 
that he finally reported her as in the way of recovery. 
Bentinck proved himself, in the main, worthy of such 
a friendship. He was wise in counsel and brave in 
action. He was the prince's trusted supporter on the 
field of battle, and representative in negotiations of 
highest moment. When the prince went to England 
to lead a revolution there, Bentinck was still nearest and 
dearest as friend, helper, and counselor. When the 
Prince of Orange had become King of England, Ben- 
tinck was created Earl, and then Duke, of Portland. He 
was made the chief officer of the royal household. On 
journeys of state he had a seat in the king's carriage. 
He was largely instrumental in securing the treaty at Rys- 
wick, that gave peace to three kingdoms. For twenty-five 
years William and Bentinck were rarely separated, save 
for a very brief period at a time, and then their thoughts 
were constantly on each other, and they were impatient 
to be together again. 

Of the two friends, William seemed truer and tenderer 
in this affectionate relation than Bentinck. He who was 
deemed by many " the most cold-blooded of mankind," 
and even as " destitute of human feelings," was ever full 
of warmth and affection as a generous and unswerving 
friend, in accordance with the true royalty of his great 
nature. There came a time when Bentinck grew un- 
reasonably sensitive to the king's interest in a new 
attendant and courtier, and showed his dissatisfaction 
so rudely that the king permitted him to leave Eng- 



138 Influencing Royalty. 

land as ambassador to France, because Bentinck was no 
longer contented in the companionship of his royal friend. 
But even then the king's friendship knew no change. 
Writing to Bentinck a few days after the latter had left 
for France, the King said touchingly: "The loss of your 
society has affected me more than you can imagine. I 
should be very glad if I could believe that you felt as 
much pain at quitting me as I felt at seeing you depart; 
for then I might hope that you had ceased to doubt the 
truth of what I so solemnly declared to you on my oath. 
Assure yourself that I was never more sincere. My 
feeling toward you is one which nothing but death can 
alter." In fidelity of conduct Bentinck never failed his 
friend the king. He was true to his interests to the last, in 
any service that he undertook for him ; but in his tender- 
ness of feeling as a friend he showed no such royalty of 
nature as the king. Finally, Bentinck, as the Duke of 
Portland, insisted on retiring from the court to the im- 
mense estates which the king's favor had secured to him 
as his own. The king sought in vain to retain him near 
him, but the irritated friend was obstinately unreason- 
able. Then again the king showed himself a friend un- 
swervingly. " I hope that you will oblige me in one 
thing," he wrote. " Keep your key of office. I shall 
not consider you as bound to any attendance. But I 
beg you to let me see you as often as possible. That 
will be a great mitigation of the distress which you 
have caused me. For, after all that has passed, I cannot 
help loving you tenderly." Great-hearted king ! Royal 
in friendship ! 

At last the deliverer of England lay on his death-bed. 



Influencing Royalty. 139 

Macaulay describes the scene. His breathing grew more 
and more difficult. "'Can this,' he said to the physicians, 
'last long?' He was told that the end was approaching. 
He swallowed a cordial, and asked for Bentinck. These 
were his last articulate words. Bentinck [who had al- 
ready been summoned] instantly came to the bedside, 
bent down, and placed his ear close to the king's mouth. 
The lips of the dying man moved, but nothing could be 
heard. The king took the hand of his earliest friend, and 
pressed it to his heart. In that moment, no doubt, all 
that had cast a slight passing cloud over their long and 
pure friendship was forgotten. It was now between seven 
and eight in the morning. He closed his eyes and gasped 
for breath. The bishops knelt down, and read the com- 
mendatory prayer. When it ended, William was no more." 
The work of another royal friend was finished. 

While William the Third was on the throne of Eng- 
land, there came to his realm a royal visitor from a dis- 
tant land, whose very visit was an illustration of the 
power of friendship, and who was himself a power in 
the world largely because of his friendships. Peter the 
Great came from Russia to England at the close of the 
seventeenth century. He traveled incognito, as a mem- 
ber of a party at the head of which was General Franz 
Lefort, an Italian-Swiss by birth, to whom the Tsar of 
the Russias was attached in a warm personal friendship, 
— a friendship that did much to shape the career of this 
royal ruler of men. Peter was a man of great strength 
and of great weakness. His violent outbursts of temper 
would have neutralized in large measure the power of 
his tireless energy, if there had been no one whom he 



140 Influencing Royalty. 

loved and trusted sufficiently tc accept as a check on 
his intense nature. Peter had the elements of greatness, 
but those elements required the unifying factor of a 
friendship to make them wisely effective for good. 
Referring to these warring elements of his nature, a 
recent biographer says of him : " The character of Peter 
exhibits a strange congeries of opposed qualities." But 
" in spite of his errors no one will deny that he was a man 
of great genius. . . . All Russia seems but the monument 
of this strange colossal man. . . . The title. of ' great' 
cannot justly be refused to such a man." 

Peter was only eighteen years old when he became 
acquainted with Franz Lefort, who was some seventeen 
years his senior, and was at that time an officer in the 
Russian army. Lefort was capable, upright, warm- 
hearted, unselfish, sympathetic, and winsome; and the 
tsar quickly saw in him the friend he needed, " From 
this time on," says Schuyler, " Peter became daily more 
intimate with Lefort. He dined with him two or three 
times a week, and demanded his presence daily." When 
the two friends were separated, they corresponded famil- 
iarly. " No one, except Catharine [first mistress, then 
wife, of Peter], was able to give Peter so much sympathy, 
and so thoroughly to enter into his plans. Lefort alone 
had enough influence over him to soothe his passions, 
and to prevent the consequences of his sudden outbursts 
of anger." But for that friendship, that great nature 
might have gone a-wreck ! Lefort was fittingly cared for 
by his royal friend. He was advanced in rank, " first to 
lieutenant-general, then to full general, commander of the 
first regiment, admiral, and ambassador." Lefort's home 



Influencing Royalty. 141 

became the center of social interest to the tsar, " a sort 
of club-house for Peter's company ; " and the expense 
of its extensive entertainments was met by Peter him- 
self. The intimacy of the two friends extended to all 
the thinking and doing of the tsar. After seven years 
of this intimacy, the journey to Western Europe was 
undertaken, with Lefort, as has been said, at the head 
of the embassy, and the tsar as professedly an humble 
member of the party. This journey of Peter's, says 
Macaulay, speaking from an English standpoint, " is an 
epoch in the history, not only of his own country, but 
of ours, and of the world." Schuyler, while not willing to 
concede to it all this importance, says explicitly : " Peter's 
journey marks the division between the old Russia, an 
exclusive, little-known country, and the new Russia, an 
important factor in European politics. It was also one 
of the turning-points in the development of his char- 
acter, and was the continuation of the education begun 
in the German suburb" of Moscow, where Peter first 
visited Lefort and became his friend. But for Lefort's 
influence, this journey of Peter's might never have been 
made, or have proved of such importance in its results. 
It was after the return of the tsar to his dominions 
that his friendship with Lefort was interrupted by the 
death of the latter. "At the news of the death," says 
Schuyler, " he burst into thick sobs, and, with a flood of 
tears, broke out in these words : ' Now I am left without 
one trusty man. He alone was faithful to me ; in whom 
can I confide henceforward?'" 

The impulse of Lefort's friendship had given Peter his 
start, and its steadying power had given him his balance 



142 Influencing Royalty. 

in his work of wise reforms for his vast empire. Its 
influence was with him as a memory and an incentive to 
the close of his busy life. Missing its help and stimulus, 
and longing for the sympathy that it had secured to 
him, Peter turned, after the death of Lefort, to one of 
his companions who had been with him from boyhood ; 
and gradually he drew him closer to himself as a friend, 
in the vain hope of finding Lefort's place supplied. " It 
was after the siege of Noteberg [three years after the 
death of Lefort]," says Schuyler, " that Menshikof was 
admitted to the full friendship of his master, became the 
confidant of his plans and feelings, and his trusted ad- 
viser, and in every way occupied the place in Peter's 
friendship which had been vacant since the death of 
Lefort." Menshikof had large ability, good-humor, and 
attractiveness ; and his influence with Peter was very 
great during the remainder of the latter's lifetime. But 
Menshikof had no such integrity and unselfishness as 
were the charm of Lefort, nor could he be so true a 
friend. " He was ambitious and avaricious." He "mis- 
used his powers and position, as well as the confidence 
which the tsar so freely gave him." Again and again 
the tsar was compelled to put away Menshikof, because 
of his misdoing ; and as often his longing for a true 
friend, and his love for this treacherous one, induced him 
to recall him to a new opportunity of betrayal. It was 
after one of these many recalls that Peter said to Catha- 
rine, in heaviness of heart : " Menshikof was conceived 
in iniquity, born in sin, and will end his life as a rascal 
and a cheat ; and, if he do not reform, he will lose 
his head." Although estranged from Peter during the 



Influencing Royalty. 143 

latter years of the tsar's life, it was not until Peter's 
grandson was on the throne that Menshikof finally died, 
in exile and disgrace. Up to that time he swayed vast 
power in the councils of Russia ; and that power he 
would never have won, but for the tsar's sincere friend- 
ship for the true-hearted Lefort, and his vain hope of a 
substitute for it in the friendship of Menshikof. 

In noting the world's great sovereigns, it would never 
do to pass unmentioned Napoleon Bonaparte ; for he 
was in his day a king of kings, and, in spite of all draw- 
backs, he must be reckoned great among the world's 
greatest. On the one hand, Napoleon seems to us so 
self-enclosed and so self-reliant, if not actually so ab- 
sorbed in self, that we can hardly think of him as having 
any special need of a personal friend, or as likely to be 
held or swayed by the power of a personal friendship. 
On the other hand, because friendship is what it is in the 
world's history, it would seem impossible that a man so 
great as Napoleon could be what he was without the aid 
of this force of forces. It is not to be wondered at, there- 
fore, that the denial and the recognition of friendship's 
potency are both to be found in the story of Napoleon. 
" Friendship is but a name," said Napoleon. " I love no 
one. ... I know well that I have not one true friend. As 
long as I continue what I am, I may have as many pre- 
tended friends as I please." Yet Napoleon had friends 
whom he loved and trusted, and who loved and trusted 
him ; and Napoleon honored the sentiment of friendship. 
When, in 1804, Pichegru and Cadoudal were leaders in a 
conspiracy against the life of Napoleon, the Legislative 
Assembly of France passed an ordinance making it a 



1 44 Influencing Royalty. 

crime punishable with death to shelter one of these con- 
spirators. M. Marbois, one of Napoleon's ministers, was an 
old friend of Pichegru, and when the latter, in desperation, 
came to him for temporary shelter, he gave it to him for 
friendship's sake. Subsequently Marbois reported this 
fa6l to Napoleon, and Napoleon wrote him a letter ex- 
pressive of his admiration of that spirit which prompted 
him to give shelter to one who, though an outlaw, had 
been his friend. Again, a few years later, when Napoleon 
was speaking in severe censure of one of his generals, at 
a meeting of the Privy Council, a member of the Council 
spoke earnestly in defense of his absent friend. At first, 
Napoleon was angered. Then, recovering himself, he 
said warmly : " But he is your friend, sir. I had forgot- 
ten it. You do right to defend him." 

While yet but a boy in the military school at Brienne, 
Napoleon won the friendship of a school-fellow named 
Demasis, who loved him for his own sake, and who was 
glad afterwards to be his comrade in their earliest artil- 
lery service. There came a time, after his first military 
exploits at Paris and Toulon, when Napoleon was de- 
prived of his command, and seemed destined to a life of 
hopeless inaction. Without money and without position, 
knowing that his mother was in want and that he could 
not help her, he gave way to temporary despair, and was 
actually on his way to the river-bank to commit suicide 
by drowning, when he came face to face with a man 
dressed as a mechanic, whom he did not recognize, but 
who warmly embraced him, crying out : " Is it you, 
Napoleon? How glad I am to see you again!" It was 
his friend Demasis, who had recently come back to 



Influencing Royalty, 145 

France in disguise, in order to visit his aged mother. 
Seeing the evident depression of Napoleon, Demasis 
lovingly pressed him to disclose its cause, and, when he 
had learned the whole story, he said cheerily, "Is that 
all?" and, unclasping a belt from underneath his coarse 
waistcoat, he thrust it into Napoleon's hands, with the 
words : " Here are six thousand dollars in gold, which I 
can spare without any inconvenience. Take them, and 
relieve your mother." Long years after, Napoleon re- 
lated this incident in his St. Helena prison-home, adding: 
"I cannot to this day explain to myself how I could 
have been willing to receive the money; but I seized the 
gold as by a convulsive movement, and, almost frantic 
with excitement, ran to send it to my distressed mother." 
As showing that this act of Demasis was wholly the 
prompting of an unselfish friendship, Napoleon said that, 
for fifteen years after that meeting with Demasis, he 
hunted in vain for some trace of his friend ; and when at 
last he found him, he learned that he had purposely kept 
himself out of sight, lest Napoleon should endeavor to 
reward him for his affectionate service. Napoleon, refer- 
ring tenderly and with reverence to this incident in his 
career, recognized it explicitly as the resultant outcome 
of an "early friendship," which, by "one of those mys- 
teries of Providence that we so often witness," had an 
"immense influence" upon his personal destiny. If this 
occurrence were all by itself as a proof of the potency 
of friendship in the life-course of Napoleon, it would be 
enough to show that he was no exception to the world's 
great sovereigns in his dependence on this all-prevailing 
sentiment. But it does not stand alone in his life-story. 

10 



146 Influencing Royalty, 

Even before this fortunate meeting with his old friend 
Demasis, Napoleon had made the acquaintance of a 
young soldier named Duroc, to whom he became 
warmly attached in the bonds of a personal friendship. 
Duroc was three years younger than Napoleon. In 
1796, while only twenty- four years old, he was appointed 
on the staff of the great commander as a personal aide ; 
and from that time on, with all his varied promotions, 
Duroc was kept close to his master and friend, until he 
was killed in his service, in 181 3.] That such a friend- 
ship had its influence on both parties to it, is as patent 
as its existence. Sir Archibald Alison, referring to this 
friendship, says : " Duroc loved Napoleon for his own 
sake, and possessed perhaps a larger share of his confi- 
dence than any of his other generals." | Duroc was the 
close companion of Napoleon in Egypt; and, returning 
with him, in advance of the main army, to Paris, he had 
an active part in the Revolution of Brumaire, which 
placed Napoleon on the throne of France. When Napo- 
leon was emperor, he made Duroc marshal of the palace, 
and created him Duke of Friuli. He sent him on special 
missions of importance to the courts of Berlin, Vienna, 
Dresden, Stockholm, and St. Petersburg, and he was 
affectionately intimate with him in his home life in Paris. 
He even wished Duroc to marry Hortense, the daughter 
of Josephine ; but Josephine was unwilling to sanction 
this match. Duroc was with Napoleon in Russia, and 
he was one of the little party that accompanied the 
emperor in his hurried return to Paris at the close of 
that disastrous campaign. It was a few months after 
this return that Duroc was killed, in the battle of 



Influencing Royalty. 147 

Merkersdorf, in Saxony, May 21, 181 3; and the record 
of Napoleon's grief over the death of this friend is a 
touching page in the history of human friendship. 

Napoleon seemed to have a presentiment of evil to 
himself or to his friend that day. " Duroc," he said in 
the early morning, when one of his aides was hit, " for- 
tune is determined to have one of us to-day." In the 
afternoon, as the emperor, with members of his staff and 
of his guard, was riding through a ravine in the smoke 
of the battle, a cannon-ball, glancing from a tree, struck 
Duroc, and mortally wounded him. When told of this, 
Napoleon seemed for a moment completely paralyzed 
with grief. Then he cried out in agony : " Duroc ! Duroc ! 
Gracious Heaven, my presentiments never deceive me ! 
This is indeed a sad day — a fatal day." It mattered not 
to Napoleon that the battle needed his attention, now 
that his one friend was dying. Dismounting from his 
horse, he said earnestly, " I must see him. Poor, poor 
Duroc ! " Duroc had been taken into a cottage, and he 
lay there in terrible suffering. Coming to him, Napo- 
leon threw his arms around his neck, and embraced him 
affectionately. Duroc took the hand of the emperor, 
and pressed it to his lips with words of devotion. "All 
my life," he said to his imperial friend, " has been de- 
voted to you ; and now my only regret is that I can be 
useful to you no longer." " Duroc ! " sobbed out Napo- 
leon, as if in recognition of the imperishableness of a 
real friendship, " Duroc ! There is another life. There 
you will await me. We shall one day meet again." 
Napoleon, deeply moved, sat with his head resting on 
the left hand of Duroc, while their two right hands were 



148 Influencing Royalty. 

clasped tenderly. It was not until Duroc insisted that 
Napoleon should leave him that the latter finally arose 
from his friend's side, and found his way, in tears, to 
his own tent, where he shut himself up to his great 
grief for the night, absolutely refusing to see any one 
of his generals, even on the most pressing business, until 
the morning. 

The next day Napoleon summoned to his presence 
the proprietor of the cottage in which Duroc died, 
together with the rector of the parish and the magistrate 
of the village, and arranged, with the payment of four 
thousand dollars, for the purchase of the property and 
for the erection there of a monument to his friend, bear- 
ing this inscription : " Here General Duroc, Duke of 
Friuli, grand marshal of the palace of the Emperor 
Napoleon, gloriously fell, struck by a cannon-ball, and 
died in the arms of the emperor, his friend." " The 
emperor was cut to the heart by the loss of his dear 
friend Duroc," wrote Napoleon's trusted minister, Cau- 
laincourt, years afterward ; and it was evident to all 
that Napoleon never forgot that " dear friend." When 
Napoleon was in the hands of his enemies, after the 
battle of Waterloo, he asked permission to live as a pri- 
vate citizen in England under the name of " Colonel 
Duroc," bearing the name of his one "other self." Even 
on his dying-bed, in St. Helena, he made provision in his 
will for the daughter of Duroc. Although the overthrow 
of Napoleon prevented the erection of the monument he 
had planned to Duroc's memory, the remains of that 
faithful friend were, in 1847, brought to Paris, to find 
their fitting resting-place, together with those of General 



Influencing Royalty. 149 

Bertrand, his immediate successor in office, alongside of 
the remains of the emperor in the Church of the Invalides. 
Napoleon owed much to the loyal friendship of Duroc,and 
he realized it. Such a friendship became such a man; and 
it is well that its record is so unmistakably plain. 

But Napoleon's truest friend was Josephine. It has 
been already said that a wife, or a husband, who is a 
true friend in the conjugal relation, might be just as truly 
a friend apart from that relation ; for friendship is the 
love of another for that other's sake, and not for what 
that other is to the loving one. And this truth finds its 
fullest illustration in the love of Josephine for Napoleon. 
Josephine came to love Napoleon for his own sake after 
their marriage, if not before ; and she continued to bear 
for him an unselfish love, even through their differences, 
to the close of her life. Her thought was of what she 
could do for his truest welfare and to advance his highest 
interests. To this end she was ever ready to make any 
personal sacrifice, and even to risk the loss of his favor. 
"Josephine seemed his good angel," says Saint- Amand. 
"We may say that throughout his career, so long as he 
was with her he always enjoyed the most brilliant suc- 
cess." Her eyes saw dangers that he had not perceived. 
Her tact averted perils against which he, if alone, would 
have been powerless. " All the brusqueness and violence 
of Bonaparte's manners were tempered by the soothing 
and insinuating gentleness of his amiable and kindly 
wife. She was to exercise direct influence on the victims 
and accomplices of the coup d'etat [which gave him 
supreme power], — on Barras, Gohier, Sieves, Fouche, 
Moreau, and Talleyrand. Who knows ? Without 



150 Influenci7ig Royalty. 

Josephine's skill and tact, Bonaparte might, perhaps, 
have made a failure." " Without her, he would hardly 
have attained such wonderful results." And Napoleon 
ultimately realized that he had a true friend and a real 
helper in Josephine. 

So long as this friendship was exercised co-ordinately 
with the marriage relation it might have been looked at 
as nothing more than wifely love; but the time came 
when its power beyond that was tested, and it stood the 
test. When Napoleon decided to put away Josephine as 
a wife, although it was the breaking of her heart to leave 
him, she assured him that she should still be his " best 
friend ; " and she made good her word. " I have the 
pleasure of giving him the greatest proof of attachment 
and devotedness that was ever given on earth," she said, 
in her formal request, at his desire, for the sundering of 
the marriage tie that had bound them. " But the dis- 
solution of my marriage will in no respe6t change the 
sentiments of my heart," she added. " The emperor will 
ever find in me his best friend." And she spoke truly, 
as the emperor subsequently realized. Napoleon was 
never himself after that act. Josephine was herself to 
the last. When the longed-for son of Napoleon was 
born, not even that child's imperial father or mother had 
greater or more grateful joy than filled the heart of 
Josephine, as the cannon of the garrison near her 
sounded the intelligence that he to whom she was a 
friend had now received the chief desire of his heart. 
Writing at once in congratulation to the glad father, she 
had words of tenderness also for the favored mother. 
" She cannot be more tenderly devoted to you than I 



Influencing Royalty. 151 

am," she said ; " but she has been enabled to contribute 
more to your happiness by securing that of France. . . . 
Not till you have ceased to watch by her bed, not till 
you are weary of embracing your son, will you take 
your pen to converse with your best friend. . . . Mean- 
while, it is not possible for me to delay telling you that, , 
more than any one in the world, do I rejoice in your joy." 
And in abounding evidence of the sincerity of her delight, 
she presented to the page of the emperor, who was already 
bringing her the glad intelligence while her congratulatory 
note was on the way, a diamond breast-pin and a thousand 
dollars in gold, in token of her joy in his message. 

Thus always in this friendship ; Josephine never wa- 
vered, never changed. When the overthrow of Napo- 
leon by the allies caused his banishment to Elba, with 
his separation from his wife and child, Josephine realized 
that her mission as his friend was at last at an end. She 
wrote to Napoleon in hearty assurance of unswerving 
fidelity, and in profoundest regret, that she was unable, 
through his act, to follow him into his solitude. " Now 
only can I calculate the whole extent of the misfortune 
of having beheld my union with you dissolved by law," 
she said. And then she lay down and died, with a prayer 
for him on her lips. Napoleon could see, in looking back 
upon his stormy career, that the richest blessing of his life 
had been the friendship of Josephine, and that the great- 
est error of his life had been the practical rejection of her 
friendship. "She was the best woman in France," he 
said at St. Helena ; and he had before said, that to her 
love he was indebted for the only few moments of hap- 
piness he ever enjoyed on earth. And he spoke sadly, 



152 Influencing Royalty, 

in those later years, of his divorce from Josephine, as the 
time when he set his " foot on an abyss covered with a 
bed of flowers." The record shows that that friendship 
of Josephine was very much to Napoleon while it was 
cherished, and that its rejection was one of the causes 
of his ruin. 

In the East and in the West, earlier and later, the 
story is much the same. History and fiction combine 
to celebrate the praises of friendship in royalty, as of 
royalty in friendship. 

The most widely known of all the Muhammadan kha- 
leefs, and the one whose sway was most extensive in the 
East, was Haroon-ar-Rasheed of Bagdad ; or Haroun 
Alraschid, as he is called in our English versions of the 
Arabian Nights. He was a contemporary of Charles the 
Great, at the close of the eighth and the beginning of 
the ninth century, and is said to have been in friendly 
correspondence with that great emperor of the Franks. 
It is not easy to separate the true from the fanciful in 
the story of this khaleef ; but all writers agree in declar- 
ing that the rise and glory of his wonderful reign were 
linked with his friendship for Jaafer, a son of his grand 
vizier, Yahya. In the stories of the Arabian Nights, 
Jaafer is the favorite companion of Haroon in his many 
marvelous adventures. Careful biographers also agree 
in saying that Jaafer was the constant sharer of Haroon's 
enjoyments, and would often be found with him in his 
pleasure-seeking when the hour of early morning prayer 
closed the night they had had together. " Haroon's 
attachment to Jaafer was of so extravagant a character 
that he could never bear him to be absent from his 



Influencing Royalty. 153 

side," says Professor Palmer ; " and he even went to the 
absurd length of having a cloak made with two collars, 
so that he and Jaafer could wear it at one and the same 
time." Jaafer was advanced in wealth and dignity by his 
royal friend. He came to have almost limitless influence, 
and he made use of it according to his own ideas of expe- 
diency. In order to open the way to the hareem for his 
friend, that they might not be separated even there, the 
khaleef arranged a nominal marriage between Jaafer and 
the sister of Haroon, with the distinct agreement that 
the relations between the two should be purely Platonic. 
Because this agreement was not adhered to by Jaafer, 
Haroon turned against his friend, and destroyed him and 
his family. The friendship, while it lasted, was a swaying 
force in the khaleefate; and its rupture was a beginning 
of the end to the dynasty represented by Haroon. 

Greatest and best of the Mogul emperors was Akbar 
Muhammad, or Jelal-ed-Deen, who reigned in the latter 
half of the sixteenth century. He was great as a soldier 
and a statesman. He was practically the founder of the 
empire of India. He bore the title of Joogat Gooroo, 
" Protector of Mankind," and he is said to have been the 
only Oriental sovereign who ever deserved such a desig- 
nation. Such a ruler must have appreciated friendship, 
and have known how to be a friend. Among the many 
stories that are told of the greatness and goodness of 
Akbar (and "Akbar" means "greatest") are stories of 
his friendship for Shaykh Solayman, whom he trusted 
with a royal confidence. It is even said that, while 
Akbar was away from his capital on his important 
campaigns, he practically gave over his palace and his 



154 Influencing Royalty. 

kingdom to his friend Solayman, putting into his charge 
the care of his wives and children, his treasury, and his 
affairs of state. Tradition whispers that Solayman was 
not always true to his trust as the emperor's friend ; but 
no one ever questioned the emperor's royal and unswerv- 
ing love for his friend, as his other self. At Sicandra, near 
Agra, there rest the remains of Akbar in a magnificent 
mausoleum. At Futtipoor Sicri, not far from the same 
capital, is the tomb that contains all that was mortal of 
Solayman. Both burial-places are revered as sacred 
shrines ; and pilgrims who go from the one to the other 
tell, to this day, of the friendship whereby the Shaykh 
Solayman was honored by the Emperor Akbar. 

So it is always and everywhere; royalty shows itself 
royal in its appreciation of friendship, and friendship 
finds its fitting sway in the heart of him who is royal. 
Friendship is not dependent on royalty; but true royalty 
realizes its dependence on friendship. 





PROMOTING HEROISM. 




EROISM is more than royalty, but heroism 
is not more than friendship. Friendship 
can make men's spirit heroic, as friendship 
can make men's characters royal. In hero- 
ism and in royalty friendship proves an 
incitement and an inspiration. 

In Plato's Banquet, Phaedrus says that if an army could 
be made up of men who loved one another as friends, 
" such persons, fighting side by side, although few in 
number, would conquer, so to say, the whole world; for 
a lover-friend would less endure to be seen by his be- 
loved deserting his post or throwing away his arms than 
by all others ; and rather than to leave his friend when 
fallen, or not to assist him when in danger, he would 
prefer to die many deaths." And Phaedrus adds : "There 
is not a man so much of a coward that love would 
not divinely inspire him to deeds of valor, and make 
him equal to the very best of birth." Aristotle, like- 
wise, lays emphasis on friendship as peculiarly a ne- 

155 



156 Promoting Heroism. 

cessity " to those in the vigor of life, in order to further 
their noble deeds;" and, in enforcement of this thought, 
he cites from Homer: "If two go together, one before 
another perceiveth a matter, how there may be gain 
therein ; but if one alone perceive aught, even so his wit 
is shorter, and weak his device." Or, as the inspired 
Preacher expresses it, as rendered by Tayler Lewis : 

" Better are two than one, for then there is to them 
A good reward for all their toil. 
For if they fall, the one shall raise his friend. 
But wo to him who falls alone, with none to lift him up ! " 

Budgel, a friend of Addison, suggests, in the Spectator, 
that "there is something in friendship so very great and 
noble that in those fictitious stories which are invented 
to the honor of any particular person, the authors have 
thought it as necessary to make their hero a friend as 
a lover. Achilles has his Patroclus, and ^Eneas his 
Achates." 

Fable and history thrill with illustrations of friendship's 
heroism. The legendary Hercules (now thought to be 
a Greek adaptation of the Babylonian Izdubar)' had the 
companionship and cheer of his friend Iolaiis in daring 
and brilliant exploits. Iolaiis was the charioteer of Her- 
cules, and he won a victory for his friend in the Olympic 
races. The two were together in slaying the Lernean 
Hydra, and Eurystheus denied to Hercules the honor 
of this triumph on the ground that he could not have 
wrought it without the assistance of his friend. Iolaiis 
outliving Hercules was first in offering sacrifices to his 
hero-friend as a demigod; and after the death of Iolaiis 



Promoting Heroism. 157 

he obtained permission to return to earth in order to give 
assistance to the children of Hercules. Having slain 
Eurystheus, the oppressor of the children of Hercules, 
Iolaiis returned again to the lower regions. Because of 
the recognized beauty and power of this friendship of 
Iolaiis for Hercules, the tomb of Iolaiis was made a 
sacred shrine for friends ; whither, as Plutarch tells us, 
they went to register their vows of unswerving affection. 

Theseus was an Attic hero second only to Hercules in 
ancient story. Linked with him in his deeds of courage 
was his friend Pirithoiis, whom he first came to love 
when they met as enemies. Together these friends gave 
battle to the centaurs. It was with the help of Pirithoiis 
that Theseus carried off Helen of Sparta — who became 
the cause of the Trojan war. When Pirithoiis would 
invade Hades to abdu6l Proserpine, his friend Theseus 
would not desert him in his mad enterprise. Both heroes 
were held captive by Pluto, until Hercules visited the 
lower world in order to release the one who had gone 
thither as an act of friendship. 

The highest achievements of heroism at the siege of 
Troy pivoted on the friendship of Achilles and Patroclus. 
It was from friendship for Achilles that Patroclus first 
took part in that conflict; and when the aggrieved Achilles 
had withdrawn from the field, Patroclus clad himself in 
the armor of his friend and renewed the fight for both. 
The death of Patroclus brought Achilles once more to 
the front; as no entreaty of his countrymen, and no 
proffered reward, could compass it. Not patriotism, but 
friendship, incited the heroic deeds of Achilles, by which 
the doom of Troy was sealed. 



158 Promoting Heroism. 

Next after Achilles in heroic prominence at that siege 
came Ulysses ; and as Patroclus was an inspirer to Achil- 
les through his friendship, Diomedes was the inspiring 
friend of Ulysses. Affectionate and covenanted brothers- 
in-arms, Ulysses and Diomedes were doubly heroic be- 
cause they were friends. Together they ventured by 
night into the very camp of the Trojans ; and it was 
while planning for that perilous exploit that Diomedes 
told of his trust in Ulysses as one " whose heart is pass- 
ing eager, and his spirit so manful in all manner of toils;" 
saying of the inspiration of his presence : " While he 
cometh with me, even out of burning fire might we both 
return, for he excelleth in understanding." Together 
Ulysses and Diomedes brought away from within the 
walls of Troy the sacred palladium, on the presence of 
which the city's safety had depended. Together the two 
hero-friends passed into immortality, because of achieve- 
ments they never could have wrought without their 
friendship. 

The heroic daring and doing of the two friends Orestes 
and Pylades were a delight in Grecian song and story, 
and have been rejoiced or wept over in all the ages since. 
It was from his unselfish love for Orestes that Pylades 
went with his friend on his perilous expedition to Taurus, 
to bring thence to Athens the image of Diana that had 
fallen from heaven. These heroes gloried in their friend- 
ship, and were ready to die for it. 

" Are ye twin-brothers from one mother born ?" 

was the question asked of them, when they stood un- 
recognized before the priestess of Diana, having been 



Promoting Heroism. 159 

seized and brought thither for immolation. Their answer, 
by Orestes, came : 

" By friendship are we, not by kinship, lady." 

When it was declared that one of them must die, while 
the other might return to Greece, a kindly strife arose 
between them in the effort of each to die in the other's 
stead. Being urged by Pylades to yield this privilege 
of sacrifice to his friend, Orestes insisted that it were 
basely inconsistent with the spirit of true friendship for 
one to secure his own safety at the cost of his friend's 
life ; and that he must insist on dying, rather than live 
at such a cost. This answer it was that called from 
Iphigenia the admiring acclaim : 

" O lofty spirit ! from some generous root 
Hast thou uprisen, a true friend to thy friend." 

And because these hero -friends were such heroes as 
friends, both were permitted to live, and their fame has , 
never died. 

Epaminondas and Pelopidas were Theban hero-friends, 
whose friendship made them heroic, and whose heroism 
made and showed them friends. Pelopidas refused to 
use his great wealth for his own comfort, when his friend 
declined to be enriched by it and lacked the means to 
rival it. Side by side the two friends fought heroically. 
When Pelopidas fell in battle, and was supposed to be 
dead, Epaminondas protected his body at the peril of his 
own life. Recovering from his wounds, Pelopidas aided 
Epaminondas in expelling the Spartans from Thebes. 
When Pelopidas was held captive by Alexander of Pherae, 
Epaminondas fought heroically for his rescue. Their 



1 60 Promoting Heroism. 

whole lives were an exhibit of the power of friendship 
in inciting to heroism ; and Thebans and Thessalonians 
united in honoring their memory as hero-friends. 

The famous " Sacred Band of Thebans" was, according 
to Diodorus, a band of one hundred and fifty pairs of 
friends, every man of whom was distinguished for strength 
and discipline and bravery and friendship, and was ex- 
pected to be always with his chosen friend. Two by two 
in a bond of sacred friendship those soldiers enlisted for a 
life -and -death struggle together; and such heroes they 
were, through being such friends, that their band was 
never overborne in conflict until the great battle of Chae- 
ronea ; and then they all stood and fell together, " faithful 
unto death." When Philip of Macedon looked down upon 
those three hundred hero-friends, "dead in their armor, 
heaped one upon another, having met the spears of the 
phalanx face to face, he marveled at the sight ; and, learn- 
ing that it was the Band of Friends, he burst into tears, 
and said, ' Perish those who would suspect these men of 
I doing or abetting anything base!'" 

In confirmation of the truth, as thus illustrated, that 
there is no incitement to heroism like friendship, Plutarch 
refers to a current "saying of Pammenes, that Homer's 
Nestor is not a good general when he bids the Greeks 
assemble by their tribes and clans : 

' That tribe to tribe, and clan to clan, give aid ; ' 

whereas he ought to have placed side by side men who 
loved each other ; for men care little in time of danger 
for men of the same tribe or clan, whereas the bond of 
affection is one that cannot be broken." 



Promoting Heroism. 161 

Friendship as a spur to heroism is as prominent in the 
song and story of ancient Rome, as of Greece. ^Eneas 
was the ancestral hero of the Romans ; coming, as it is 
said, from Mount Ida to Latium, with the sacred palla- 
dium of Troy after the fall of that city. Side by side 
with ^Eneas in his heroic exploits by land and sea was 
his devoted friend Achates. In sympathy, in inspiration, 
and in stalwart aid, this hero-friend was so much to 
^Eneas that to the Romans in their best day the term 
" fidus Achates" was a synonym of unswerving fidelity 
in friendship ; and the force of that proverbial term has 
remained unbroken even to our day. 

In the same poem in which Virgil tells, in undying 
verse, of the heroic deeds of yEneas and Achates, he tells 
of the daring and doing, in their affectionate emulation, 
of Euryalus and Nisus in the siege of Pallanteum. When 
Euryalus had proposed to go alone, in the darkness of the 
night, into the Rutulian camp, his friend Nisus pleaded 
for the privilege of sharing with him the perils of the 
undertaking. For very love's sake Euryalus protested 
against this needless exposure of his friend ; but Nisus 
would not be dissuaded, and the two went out together. 
After brilliant deeds of valor, the friends were intercepted, 
on their way back, by a troop of three hundred horsemen. 
Nisus, who could have made good his own escape, seeing 
that his friend's life was endangered, sprang before him 
for his vicarious rescue. 

" ' Me, me ; 'tis I,' he cried, ' who did the deed ! 
On me direct your steel, O Rutuli ! 
The offense is mine alone. He did no harm ; 
He could not ! Yonder sky and conscious stars 

ii 



1 62 Promoting Heroism. 

Bear witness that the words I speak are true. 
He only loved too much his hapless friend ! ' " 

Seeing, however, that he could not save his friend, he 
was determined to die with and for him : 

" And dying dealt a death-blow to his foe. 
Then, on the lifeless body of his friend 
He threw himself, pierced through with many a wound, 
And there, at last, in placid death he slept." 

Caesar, in his " Commentaries on the Gallic War," tells 
of the heroic deeds, in Aquitania, of a band of six hundred 
friends known as " Soldurii, " under the leadership of 
Adiatunnus — to whom they were solemnly pledged in a 
vow of friendship. These Soldurii of Aquitania seem to 
have been somewhat like the Sacred Band of Theban 
friends ; for Caesar says that their vow of friendship 
bound them to be true in life and death to him who 
called them friends ; and if they were unable to save him 
in an extremity, they were to die with and for him. 
" Nor hitherto in the memory of man," adds Caesar, " has 
there been found one of these who refused to give up 
his life, when he to whose friendship he had devoted 
himself was slain." 

In the legends of the far North, heroism went always 
hand in hand with a loyal friendship known as "foster- 
brotherhood ; " a brotherhood of choice, and of blended 
blood, that was more binding between brave men than 
any tie of family or clanship. Viking, the first great hero 
of the Northern Seas, is told of in the Icelandic sagas as 
the foster-brother of Halfdan, a son of Ulf ; and the heroic 
exploits of these two friends were famous from Sweden 



Promoting Heroism. 163 

to India. Afterwards Viking became the friend and 
foster-brother of Njorfe, ruler of the Norwegian Uplands ; 
and the new deeds of the new friends were more heroic 
than any that either of them had known before. Always, 
moreover, it was the friendship that incited to the highest 
reach of heroism. 

Again, Thorstein, a son of Viking, became the friend 
and foster-brother of Bele, son and successor of King 
Skate, after the two had met as opponents in battle. For a 
time the power of these brother-friends was wellnigh re- 
sistless in all the North. When, at length, they met their 
match, one by one, in Angantyr, they proposed to him to 
become their brother-friend, and he gladly accepted their 
proffer. Thenceforward the three friends were the three 
great heroes of their day. It is the friendship of the 
heroes, quite as much as the heroism of the friends, that 
receives honor in the Icelandic sagas ; as when King Bele 
and Thorstein are represented in their cordial intimacy 
in the king's palace, when their days of war are over : 

" Thereafter talked the heroes both, 

In many a heartfelt tone, 
Of their long friendship's troth, 

Through all the Northland known ; 
And how their true-fast union, 

In weal and wo the same, 
(Like two hands firmly grasped in one,) 

More tight-knit shall become." 

The epic songs of Russia pivot the heroism of their 
heroes on the sworn friendship, or "cross-brotherhood," 
of the mighty men, two by two, whose exploits they com- 
memorate. Svyatogor, latest of the older cycle of Rus- 



164 Promoting Heroism. 

sian heroes, " exchanged crosses " with Ilya of Murom, 
and " Svyatogor taught Ilya all heroic customs and tra- 
ditions." After the death of Svyatogor, Ilya opened a 
new era of heroism in the strength and wisdom that he 
had gained through this friendship. Dunai Ivanovich 
and Dobrynya Nikitich were cross-brother friends ; and 
it was in their mutual trust in one another as friends 
that they went out fearlessly on their perilous mission, 
for the winning of the Princess Apraxia of Lithuania as 
a bride for their liege lord Prince Vladimir. And the 
heroism of Dunai was inspired by the friendship of 
Dobrynya. So, again, with the two mighty heroes of 
Rostof, Alyosha Popovich and Akim Ivanovich, brother- 
friends as they were ; they were fearless in danger because 
they were faithful in friendship. " Shoulder to shoulder 
rode the warriors, heroic stirrup pressed stirrup," as they 
rode, says the Russian epic. And it was when his friend 
Akim was by his side that Alyosha slew Tugarin, the 
Dragon's son. 

In India, there are not lacking stories of heroism 
incited by friendship. Homayoon, one of the Great 
Moguls, son of Baber, and father of the yet greater 
Akbar, was poet, astronomer, and soldier, as well as ruler. 
Ten generations have sung his praises as a hero-friend. 
While yet a youth, Homayoon became the sworn friend 
of Koornivati, a princess of Rajasthan ; in accordance 
with a primitive custom of India, whereby persons of the 
opposite sex might enter into a pure and sacred friend- 
ship, by the giving of a golden bracelet on the one hand, 
and of an embroidered outer garment on the other. In 
maturer life these friends were widely separated ; but their 



Promoting Heroism. 165 

friendship never wavered. At a time when Homayoon was 
engaged in active warfare in Bengal, there came to him 
a call from Koornivati for help against her enemies, by 
whom she was besieged in her royal residence at Cheetore. 
Instantly he yielded all thought of his personal interests, 
and of his very kingdom, and turned his army with forced 
marches to the rescue of his friend at Cheetore. With all 
his haste, however, he was too late to save her. The city 
had fallen before he reached it, and she had destroyed 
herself rather than fall into her conqueror's hands. Then 
Homayoon gave battle to the victory-flushed enemy; and 
to this day they tell of his deeds of valor and heroism as 
he avenged the death of his friend Koornivati by the 
destruction of the forces of her enemy. 

It is the same in the far West as in the far East; among 
all primitive peoples, no tenderer or nobler sentiment is 
known than that of an unselfish personal friendship, nor 
can any incitement to heroic action transcend its play. An 
officer of the United States army, who has given much 
study to the customs of the North American Indians, tells 
of the warm friendship sometimes existing between men 
of the same tribe, or even between two men of hostile 
tribes, under the name of" brothers by adoption." Speak- 
ing of the Arapahoe warriors in this connection, he says : 
" They really seem to ' fall in love ' with men ; and I have 
known this affectionate interest to live for years, surviv- 
ing lapse of time and separation." An illustration of the 
heroism inspired by such a friendship is given by this 
officer, as coming under his own observation. Three 
Bears and Feather-on-the-Head were attached friends, 
and were together as scouts in the United States service. 



1 66 Promoting Heroism. 

In the early gray of a cold morning in the late autumn 
of 1876, the government force to which these scouts were 
attached made a surprise attack on an Indian village in a 
canon of the Big Horn Mountains. The horse ridden 
by Three Bears becoming unmanageable dashed ahead 
of the attacking party, carrying his rider into the very 
heart of the village, where all were now aroused for the 
defense of their homes and lives. Seeing his friend's 
desperate peril, Feather-on-the-Head urged forward his 
pony, in order to save his friend or to die with him. 
Throwing himself from side to side of his pony to avoid 
the thick-flying shots of the enemy as he dashed on, 
Feather-on-the-Head reached the center of the village 
just as the horse of Three Bears had fallen under him. 
Sweeping past the spot where his imperiled friend stood, 
at the full speed of his pony, Feather-on-the-Head caught 
up Three Bears and mounted him behind himself. Then 
together the two hero-friends flew unharmed through 
the shower of bullets out of that valley of death, and 
regained their place with their command in safety. Who 
will say that this a6l of Indian heroism through friend- 
ship is undeserving of mention alongside of the heroic 
exploits in the legends of Greece and Rome and the 
Norseland ? 

Nor need it be supposed that the progress of Christian 
civilization has tended to lessen the potency of friendship, 
as an incentive to such heroism as has been its outcome 
in the days of classic story, or among later primitive 
peoples. In the best days of medieval chivalry, the very 
bravest Christian knights were those who had bound 
themselves together in a covenant of sacred friendship 



Promoting Heroism. 167 

for life and for death. " Vraye fraternite et compagnie 
d* amies" — "True brotherhood and companionship -in- 
arms," this loving relation between knights was called. 
These knightly friendships were formally ratified in Chris- 
tian churches, in the presence of relatives, and with the 
sanction of ecclesiastics ; and they were the basis of the 
most heroic exploits of the most heroic Christian knights. 
Referring to these knightly friendships, Mills, the his- 
torian of chivalry, says : " The knights vowed that they 
would never injure or vilify each other, that they would 
share each other's dangers ; and in sign of the perfec- 
tion of love and true unity, and in order to possess, as 
much as they could, the same heart and resolves, they 
solemnly promised true fraternity and companionship- 
in-arms. They then received the holy sacrament [be- 
coming sharers in each other's life through being sharers 
alike in the life of Christ], and the priest blessed the 
union. . . . This form of attachment was the strongest 
tie of chivalry." So powerful, indeed, was this bond of 
knightly friendship, that it was reckoned as taking prece- 
dence even of the chivalrous obligation to stand or fall 
in the defense of holy womanhood — if the choice must 
be made between the two. " A lady might in vain have 
claimed the protection of a cavalier, if he could allege 
that at that moment he was bound to fly to the succor 
of his brother-in-arms." 

A typical romance of the earlier days of chivalry is 
that of Amys and Amylion, two knightly friends, who 
have been called the Damon and Pythias, and again the 
Pylades and Orestes, of medieval story. Their friendship 
as heroes, and their heroism through friendship, are the 



1 68 Promoting Heroism, 

burden of all that is said or sung of them. Born the 
same day, of lordly parentage, Sir Amys and Sir Amy- 
lion came to love each other while children, and they 
were early pledged in a covenant of friendship : 

" On a day the childer war and wight 
Trewethes togider thai gan plight, 

While thai might liue and stond ; 
That, both bi day and bi night, 
In wele and wo, in wrong and right, 

That thai schuld frely fond, 
To hold togider at eueri nede, 
In word, in werk, in wille, in dede, 

Where that thai were in lond ; 
Fro that day forward neuer mo, 
Failen other for wele no wo ; 

Therto thai held vp her hond." 

From that time onward Sir Amys and Sir Amylion 
were together foremost in heroic adventures wherever 
they went. Sir Amylion at the risk of his own life res- 
cued Sir Amys from deadly peril. ■ And when Sir Amy- 
lion became an outcast leper, Sir Amys gave the heart's 
blood of his two children in order to restore his friend 
to health. In this sacrifice the mother of the children 
joined cheerfully, because it was at the call of a sacred 
friendship ; and Heaven showed its approval of the sacri- 
fice by bringing the two children to life again, while 
granting a cure to him for whom their blood had been 
shed. And this is but one story of many in proof of the 
hold that the sentiment of friendship had on the most 
heroic minds in the best days of Christian chivalry. 

Friendship and heroism and religion combine, in the 
marvelous story of Roland and Oliver and Archbishop 



Promoting Heroism. 169 

Turpin, on the bloody field of Roncesvalles, in the days 
of Charles the Great, a thousand years ago. Roland and 
Oliver were such equal and inseparable friends, that their 
very names have come down the ages as the synonym 
of impersonated likeness ; " a Roland for an Oliver," — 
equal for equal. And such stalwart Christian believers 
were these hero-friends, that the brave and godly Tur- 
pin, the archbishop, was ever ready with his blessing for 
them as friends and heroes. Never men fought as these 
friends are said to have fought, when betrayed by a 
false comrade, and outnumbered by a countless host of 
unbelieving Spanish foes. Hundreds fell by the hand 
of the Christian friends ; and still they battled on, until 
Oliver fell by the side of Roland, and as his eyes grew 
dim with death he reached out lovingly toward his friend, 
and said : " It is so dark I cannot see thy face ; give me 
thy hand. God bless thee, Roland ! God bless Charles 
and France ! " So saying, he fell upon his face, and died. 
" Dear comrade ! " said brave Roland, as he lifted his 
dead friend tenderly in his arms, " thou wast ever a good 
and gentle friend to me; better warrior brake never a 
spear, nor wielded sword. . . . God rest thy soul ! A 
sweeter friend and truer comrade no man ever had than 
thou." And only when Roland was the last of his host, 
" a lonesome man in the Valley of Death," did he also 
fall down to die. No wonder that the great Charles 
should, according to the story, embalm the bodies of 
the hero-friends, — Roland and Oliver, — and carry them 
about with him in marble coffins wherever he went, as 
a memorial of their hero-friendship. 

In the story of the first crusade there stands out the 



1 70 Promoting Heroism. 

figure of a hero-friend, and the record of exploits of hero- 
ism through friendship. Tancred is the hero of heroes 
of that expedition. " The annals of chivalry present no 
model more accomplished," says Michaud ; " poetry and 
history have united to celebrate him, and both have 
heaped upon him the same praises." And Tancred was 
induced to join the first crusade largely through his 
warm friendship for his cousin Bohemond of Tarentum, 
whose motives in that undertaking were those of selfish 
ambition, to an extent beyond the conception of his pure- 
minded kinsman. It was while Tancred was moving on 
heroically under the incitement of his friendship for Bo- 
hemond, that he came to know and love Godfrey of Bouil- 
lon, as one worthier of his devotion ; and then it was 
that the nobler friendship assumed the higher place in 
his affections, without making him untrue to that friend- 
ship which had given him a start in this direction. 

With Godfrey, and for Godfrey, Tancred multiplied his 
acts of heroism, in the campaigns and sieges that pre- 
ceded the siege of Jerusalem. Inspired by that friend- 
ship he distinguished himself at the siege of Nicea. It 
was his gallantry that saved the army of Godfrey from 
destruction at Dorylseum. He led triumphantly the ad- 
vance guard of the army through Asia Minor ; and his 
courage and fidelity shone transcendently in the siege 
of Antioch. Before Jerusalem, the " Tower of Tancred " 
was a center of conflict and of hope in the many weary 
days of that prolonged siege ; until at last the walls of 
the Holy City were surmounted, and Tancred had done 
his part in making his friend Godfrey its king. Mean- 
while and subsequently Tancred showed himself a hero- 



Promoting Heroism, 171 

friend to Bohemond, as he was pre-eminently the hero- 
friend of Godfrey. 

What more beautiful illustration could be given of 
heroism under the incitement of friendship, than that of 
Sir James Douglas, " the hero of seventy fights," in his 
loving effort to rescue from the Saracens the heart of his 
dead friend, King Robert Bruce ! 

" The Good Sir James, the dreadful blacke Douglas, 
That in his dayes so wise and worthie was, 
Wha here and on the infidels in Spain 
Such honor, praise, and triumphs did obtain." 

After many a deed of heroism with and for the king whom 
he loved so royally, Sir James had been summoned to 
the bedside of the dying king, and enjoined to take the 
king's faithful heart, as soon as it had ceased to beat, 
and carry it to Jerusalem, to be deposited with humility 
and reverence at the sepulcher of our Lord. It was 
in pursuance of this mission of friendship that Douglas 
set out against the Saracens in Spain, as Bruce had 
purposed doing. Taking from its place, suspended about 
his neck, the casket containing the memorial of his 
friend, Douglas would throw it before him toward the 
enemy, exclaiming as he did so, " Onward, brave heart 
that never failed! Douglass will follow thee or die." 
And Douglas both followed and died. The blazoned 
arms of the proud house of Douglas, to-day, is a bleeding 
heart, — the heart of a royal and a hero-inspiring friend. 

Down along the centuries, and up along the scale of 
Christian civilization, the sway of an unselfish personal 
friendship as an incitement to noble personal heroism 
shows itself in similar yet varying illustrations, in proof 



172 Promoting Heroism. 

of the truth that there is good in human nature, and that 
human nature is at its best in this direction. It were 
needless to specify particular instances, as if only they 
could be noted ; for the records of busy life abound with 
them everywhere. 

It was the spirit of friendship, rather than of loyalty 
or patriotism, that bound the staff-officers of Napoleon to 
their chief, and that prompted their many heroic a6ls in 
his behalf. Marmont, an aide of the emperor, speaking 
of this feeling on their part, said : "A genuine friendship 
held us together, and our mutual attachment amounted 
to devotion." At the battle of Arcole, Muiron, one of 
these staff officers, " bound to Napoleon by those mys- 
terious ties of affection which this strange man inspired, 
seeing a bomb-shell about to explode, threw himself 
between it and Napoleon, saving the life of his beloved 
general by the sacrifice of his own." And on that same 
day General Lannes, whom Napoleon called one of his 
few real " friends," also interposed his body between 
Napoleon and the enemy, and received three wounds 
that would otherwise have been his, even then refusing 
to leave his commander until the battle was over. And 
such a<5ts of heroism as this were frequent on the part of 
those who loved Napoleon with the love of a friend. 

In our Civil War many a soldier, on either side of the 
conflict, gave or risked his life to save a soldier-friend ; 
and more than once or twice a soldier who was sum- 
moned to a place in a squad of prisoners going out from 
a gloomy prison-pen, pushed into that place a friend 
whom he loved dearer than life, and remained a prisoner 
in his stead. A sailor on a sinking ship has urged his 



Promoting Heroism. 173 

friend into the boat that gave the last hope of life, when 
only one person could be safely added to its living freight. 
A miner has lost his own life in striving to rescue his 
friend from the deadly fire-damp. The hunter, the fac- 
tory-hand, the railroad man, has proved himself the hero- 
friend in an emergency, because of the hero-inciting 
power of friendship. So it has been many a time, so it 
is ; and so it shall continue to be. 

Fiction has its illustrations of this truth as vivid and 
as real as fact ; for the noblest ideals of the novelist are 
but the portraitures of that which has already had an 
existence in reality, f No individual character pictured 
by Charles Dickens is more admirable and exalted than 
that of Sydney Carton, in its exhibit of sublime hero- 
ism under the incitement of self-abnegating friendship. 
Sydney Carton lived an aimless, useless life, wasting all 
his opportunities and powers, until he was aroused to a 
sense of something better and holier by a sentiment of 
the purest friendship for Lucie Manette. It was no 
craving love, no love with the hope or desire of possession, 
that uplifted and enlarged the soul of Sydney Carton, as 
it went out toward Lucie Manette in an unselfish friend- 
ship for her, — because of what she was in herself, and 
not because of what she was or ever could be to him. It 
was a love that included hers for her sake, and that had 
a steadily transforming power on him whom it swayed. 
The time came when Charles Darnay, the husband of 
Lucie Manette, was sentenced to the guillotine, during 
the reign of terror, in the French Revolution. Then it 
was that Sydney Carton managed to enter the cell of 
the condemned man, and to exchange places with him, 



174 Promoting Heroism. 

sending him out to rejoin his wife and child in liberty, — 
all unconscious of the cost of this escape, — he going in 
his stead to the deadly block. And as this hero-friend 
passed along the streets to his execution, he was minis- 
tering religious comfort, in the spirit of self-forgetful 
friendship, to a gentle girl who was his fellow-sufferer ; 
and his last words to her were the assuring words of the 
Friend of friends : " I am the Resurrection and the Life, 
saith the Lord : he that believeth in me, though he were 
dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and be- 
lieveth in me shall never die." " They said of him, about 
the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face 
ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime 
and prophetic." And what could better show a man at 
his best than such an a6l of heroism, incited by such a 
friendship ; for greater love hath no man than this, that a 
man lay down his life for his friend ! 









IMPELLING RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS. 




JS REAT religious movements, whether in be- 
half of truth or error, with their limitless 
results of influence on successive genera- 
tions, have, again and again, pivoted on 
or been mainly impelled by the personal 
friendships of their pre-eminent leaders. Divinely given 
illustrations of this truth appear in the Bible record. 
When God would begin a new religious movement in 
the race, in the days of greatest degeneracy after the 
Flood, he chose one man to be his peculiar " friend," and 
he declared that in that friend, and because of that friend- 
ship, all the nations of the earth should find a blessing. 
When, again, the Son of man would make a new begin- 
ning in the line of God's covenant with Abraham, he 
chose to himself one of his disciples to be his peculiar 
friend; and the words of that friend, as a result of that 
friendship, are a means of spirit and life to all the follow- 
ers of Jesus everywhere to-day. 

The twelve apostles were sent out by our Lord, for the 

175 



176 Impelling Religious Movements. 

proclaiming of his truth and for the extension of his work, 
not one by one, but two by two, in order that each one 
should have the impelling and cheer which only a close 
personal friendship can secure. It was the same with the 
seventy others appointed by our Lord ; they went two by 
two, because, in the very nature of things, two are more 
than two — in all loving service for God or man. Peter 
and John were friends and fellow-helpers in their com- 
mon work for their common Master, from the time when 
they alone of the twelve were together within the walls of 
the high-priest's palace at the time of that Master's trial. 
They cheered each other, and together they cheered 
their fellows, when they ran in company to the tomb of 
their risen Lord to gain proofs of his resurrection. To- 
gether they two went to the temple at the hour of prayer, 
and wrought a miracle in the healing of the cripple at 
the gate Beautiful. Together they were arrested and im- 
prisoned because of their widespread influence through 
their common wonder-working. They strengthened each 
other in the faith, and together they were bold in their 
Christian confidence before the very rulers who had con- 
demned their Lord; and the cause of Christ had increased 
power over the people in Jerusalem, in those earliest days 
of the Christian Church, because Peter the leader of the 
apostles, and John whom Jesus loved, were attached and 
helpful friends. 

Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, was as strong and 
self-reliant as it is possible for any man to be; but when 
God would sustain him in his appointed work, he saw 
to it that Paul should not be without the gain of friend- 
ship as a means of grace. When Barnabas proved to 



Impelling Religious Movements. 177 

be not the man for Paul's friend, Silas took his place. 
Luke also was permitted to be in that position for a time; 
and finally Timothy became so close a friend to Paul that 
the great apostle could count him dearly beloved, as both 
friend and son. It was because of the special friendship 
between Paul and Timothy that the letters from the one 
to the other have in them so much of tender sympathy 
and of affe&ionate counsel as a means of good to appre- 
ciative readers to the end of time. And it is because of 
Paul's evident sense of the value of friendship that Dean 
Stanley characterizes him as " the great Apostle who 
' had a thousand friends, and loved each one as if he had 
a thousand souls, and died a thousand deaths when he 
parted from them.' " 

If our knowledge were fuller of the personal lives of all 
the early leaders in the Christian Church, we should have 
evidence of the particular friendships which were shaping 
factors in those lives severally ; for, because friendship is 
what it is, no great life can be at its best without its im- 
pelling power. But here and there along the centuries 
we have gleams of the friendships that have helped to 
make the more marked epochs of religious history, and 
that which we see is a suggestion of the more that is 
unseen. 

Origen, of Alexandria, who was born before the close 
of the second century, has been called " the first great 
preacher, the first great commentator, the first great dog- 
matist, of Christianity," after the days of the Apostles. 
Origen's Hexapla, a comparative view of the Hebrew text 
and the various Greek versions of the Old Testament, was 
the beginning of critical study of the Bible text in the 

12 



178 Impelling Religious Movements. 

Christian Church. His formal defense of Christianity 
against the attacks of Celsus, a Platonist philosopher, has 
been the basis, or starting-point, of Christian apologetics 
all down the centuries. His commentaries and homilies 
were multiplied to an extent that had no precedent, and 
that was a marvel for centuries afterward. Jerome sug- 
gestively asks : " Who has read as much as Origen has 
written?" His work "On First Principles" was "the 
earliest attempt to form a system of Christian doctrines, 
or rather a philosophy of the Christian faith;" and it be- 
came a center of interest and of theological controversies 
for generations following. The friendships of Origen are 
as noteworthy as is his place in religious history. It was 
while Origen was still a young scholar in the famous 
catechetical school at Alexandria that he formed a -close 
friendship with a fellow-pupil named Alexander, — a friend- 
ship which had its influence over both friends during their 
lifetime. When Origen, who had come to be at the head 
of the school in Alexandria, was in Palestine during a 
season of violent persecution in Egypt, at the beginning 
of the third century, his old friend Alexander, who had 
become Bishop of Jerusalem, encouraged him to ex- 
pound the Scriptures in the public services of the church, 
though he had not been ordained. This action called 
forth the censure of the Bishop of Alexandria, and it 
was the cause of heated discussions between ecclesi- 
astics which had their part in making history, and in 
turning the life course of Origen. Bishop Alexander 
remained a true friend to Origen in all these difficulties, 
and he owes much of his place in religious history to 
this fidelity in friendship. 



Impelling Religious Movements. 1 79 

But even more influential on the life-work of Origen 
was the friendship of Ambrose of Alexandria, an early 
pupil and a devoted admirer of Origen. Ambrose had 
money as well as a warm and tender heart, and all that 
he had was at the disposal of his friend. It was Ambrose 
who urged Origen to begin his work of the written expo- 
sition of Scripture, and he it was who furnished means 
for the prosecution of this work. At Ambrose's cost, 
seven shorthand writers were provided to take down the 
comments of Origen as they were spoken, and other 
scribes were at hand to copy out for general use the 
notes of the shorthand reporters. The many exegetical 
works of Origen are, in fact, a monument to the friend- 
ship of Ambrose. It was at this friend's request that 
Origen composed his famous reply to Celsus. Mean- 
while, at peril and sore cost to himself, Ambrose gave 
sympathy and cheer to Origen, until he was taken from 
the side of his friend, to suffer, if not to die, for friend- 
ship's sake. "Ambrose left no writings of his own ex- 
cept some letters/' says Bishop Westcott, " but it is evi- 
dent that he exercised a powerful influence upon Origen, 
who called him his ' taskmaster; ' " as, in fa6l, every true 
friend is a " taskmaster," or spur to well-doing, in the life 
of him whom he loves. If, indeed, there had been no 
friendship of Origen with Ambrose, there would have 
been no such work of Origen as made his life and labors 
an epoch in religious history. 

Closely following Origen came Eusebius of Caesarea, as 
a new center of historical interest in the religious world, 
and as a beginner in a new sphere of religious writing. 
Eusebius is called " The Father of Ecclesiastical His- 



180 Impelling Religious Movements. 

tory." He wrote a history of the first three centuries 
of Christianity, a life of Constantine, a universal history, 
a work on Christian evidences against Paganism, and 
many other works. He was on terms of intimacy with the 
Emperor Constantine, and was designated by the latter to 
make the opening address at the epoch-making Council 
of Nice. Apart from all questions as to the correctness 
of his theological opinions, it is an unmistakable fa6l that 
the influence of Eusebius was exceptionally potent in his 
day; and it is equally clear that his character and course 
felt profoundly the sway of a personal friendship. Pam- 
philus, a native of Phoenicia, was the friend who put his 
impress on this great Christian scholar. Like Ambrose 
the friend of Origen, Pamphilus had ample means ; and, 
like him, he employed his means in aiding the literary 
labors of his friend, and in multiplying copies of the 
Scriptures and of valuable religious writings. He was 
himself a scholar, and he gathered a library of rare 
value, which was, of course, at the disposal of the friend 
whom he loved. Together the two friends transcribed 
and annotated copies of the Scriptures from the best 
manuscripts available to them ; and, in addition to this 
work, they promoted the translation of portions of the 
Bible, in order to extend their influence to those who 
were unfamiliar with the Greek. 

Pamphilus seems to have been the leading spirit of the 
two, and to have advanced the character as well as the 
scholarship of Eusebius. " Eusebius owed far more to 
Pamphilus," says Bishop Lightfoot, " than the impulse 
and direction given to his studies. . . . To the sympathy 
of the friend he united the courage of the hero. He had 



Impelling Religious Movements. 181 

also the power of impressing his own strong convictions 
on others. Hence, when the great trial of faith came 
[in the days of persecution for Christ's sake], his house 
was found to be not only the home of students, but the 
nursery of martyrs. To one like Eusebius, who owed 
his strength and his weakness alike to a ready suscepti- 
bility of impression from those about him, such a friend- 
ship was an inestimable blessing." Pamphilus was cast 
into prison as a Christian. For two years Eusebius 
watched by him, studied with him, and gained from him. 
Soon after the beginning of the fourth century, Pam- 
philus met a martyr's death together with eleven holy 
companions. Eusebius mourned his friend as more than 
his other self. " My lord Pamphilus," he termed him ; 
" for it is not meet," he added, " that I should mention 
the name of that holy and blessed Pamphilus without 
styling him ' my lord.' " And from that day onward 
Eusebius insisted on being called by the name of his 
dead friend. " Eusebius Pamphili," " Pamphilus's Euse- 
bius," he wrote his name ; and it is by this name that 
he is known to history. And Eusebius was right in 
thus styling himself; for all that was best in him and 
in his work came from and through the friendship of 
Pamphilus. 

A new movement in religious thought was made by 
Augustine in the generation after Eusebius. His per- 
sonality gave shape to a system of doctrine that has put 
its impress on the Christian thought of the world ever 
since. " The Protestant emulates the Romanist in paying 
him honor," says the historian. " He is the dividing line 
between the Church of the persecution and the Church 



182 Impelling Religious Movements. 

of the empire. He ended the old and began the new 
period of her development. ,, That the character and 
course of Augustine were largely shaped by his personal 
friendships, the pages of his own " Confessions " bear 
unmistakable witness. While yet a careless unbeliever, 
Augustine had a young friend, a fellow-townsman, and 
schoolmate in his birthplace, Tagaste. One of the first 
serious impressions on the mind of Augustine seems to 
have been made by the earnest words of this young friend 
on his death-bed ; and the memory of that friend, and of 
those words, was an abiding force in his life thence- 
forward. The friendship as a friendship could not be 
forgotten. " I wondered," says Augustine, "that the rest 
of mortals could live, because he was dead whom I had 
loved as if he were never to die ; and I much more won- 
dered that I myself — who was another he — could live 
when he was gone." Confessing to the struggles of mind 
which followed the loss of this friend, Augustine records : 
" I was restless, and sighed and wept, and was distracted 
and bereft both of ease and counsel. For I carried about 
with me a soul all wounded and bleeding — impatient to 
be any longer carried by me, and yet where to lay it 
down to rest I did not find. ... I still remained to my- 
self an unhappy place, where I could neither be nor yet 
get away. For whither could my heart fly from my 
heart ? whither could I fly from myself? and where would 
not myself follow me ? However I fled from my own 
country, for my eyes missed him [the dead friend] less 
where they were not used to see him ; and from Tagaste 
I came to Carthage." 

If this friendship had been the only one to have an 



Impelling Religious Movements. 183 

influence on the character and opinions of Augustine, it 
would be evident to the careful reader of his Confessions 
that it was an important factor in the shaping forces of 
his whole being. But in addition to this, another friend- 
ship came in to hold and sway him wonderfully, until 
he could look back upon that first great life sorrow, and 
say reverently : " I was weighed down by the grievous 
burden of my misery, which by thee, O Lord, was to be 
lightened and cured ; " and he could look up in the light 
of his new friendship, saying : " Ah ! blessed is he that 
loveth thee, O Lord ! and his friend in thee." It was 
Alypius, another native of Tagaste, — one who had been 
the pupil of Augustine there, — who afterwards came into 
closest friendship with him at Carthage. " He loved 
me much, because he thought me to be learned and 
good," says Augustine; "as also I loved him for his 
great inclination to virtue, which considering his age was 
very eminent." Even while the two friends were yet 
unbelievers, each influenced the other to nobler purposes. 
Again they were together in Rome, and there, says 
Augustine of Alypius, " he stuck close to me with a 
most strong bond of friendship ; and he went with me to 
Milan that he might have my company." At Milan the 
two friends heard Ambrose preach, and were impressed 
by his preaching. Afterwards they were there brought 
together into the church by baptism. During the spirit- 
ual struggles of Augustine, Alypius was his companion 
and sharer. Even when the former would be by himself 
in prayer and communion with God, the latter could be 
with him. " For I counted not myself less private for 
his being there," says Augustine ; " nor would he leave 



184 Impelling Religious Movements. 

me alone, seeing me in this commotion." It was in such 
intimacy that the two friends, who had inspired each 
other toward a higher ideal while they were yet out of 
Christ, were led along together in the path of the Chris- 
tian life. Alypius became the saintly Bishop of Tagaste, 
and Augustine the godly and renowned Bishop of Hippo. 
The power of either of these in its world-wide sweep is 
the power of both ; and in the work of Augustine we may 
see incorporated the work of his friend Alypius. 

The religious movement led by Muhammad, in the 
seventh century, was widely different from that led by 
Augustine two centuries before, yet it has proved hardly 
less potent and far reaching among the sons of men ; 
and the course and life-work of Muhammad as a reli- 
gious leader were shaped and impelled by a personal 
friendship, as truly as were those of the great Christian 
dogmatist. Muhammadanism owes a large share of its 
success as one of the world-religions to the sympathy, 
the companionship, the unswerving fidelity, and the never- 
failing aid of Aboo Bekr, the earliest, the latest, and the 
ever dearest friend of its founder. Aboo Bekr, whose 
earlier name was Abdallah (Servant of God), or, as 
some claim, Abd-el Kaaba (Servant of the Holy House), 
was of the same tribe and clan with Muhammad, and 
of nearly the same age. There is reason for believing 
that these two were fellow -pupils of Zayd, a famous 
truth -seeking teacher at Mekka, who put his impress 
on them both. From their very youth Muhammad and 
Aboo Bekr were bosom friends, and the latter shared 
with the former in his struggles toward truth. When 
Muhammad announced himself in his own family as a 



Impelling Religious Movements. 185 

heaven-sent prophet, and had as yet not a single be- 
liever in his claims save his wife and their two adopted 
sons, Aboo Bekr was the first person to give him his 
confidence, and to pledge him support. Of this prompt- 
ness in trusting, — which is a characteristic of friendship, — 
Muhammad said gratefully : " I never invited any to the 
faith who did not at the first show hesitation and per- 
plexity, excepting only Aboo Bekr. But he, when I had 
propounded unto him Islam, tarried not, neither was per- 
plexed." When the prophet fled for his life from Mek- 
ka (an event that marks the beginning of his religion as 
a religion), Aboo Bekr was his sole companion — the 
prophet's only earthly hope. The two were together in 
the cave on Mount Thor, when, according to a Muham- 
madan tradition, their pursuers were turned from it by a 
spider-web freshly spun across its entrance. Then it was 
that the prophet said to his friend : " We are three ; for 
God is with us ; " and thenceforward, as at that time, the 
hope of Muhammad seemed to rest on God and Aboo 
Bekr. So generally was this recognized that Aboo Bekr 
was often called the " Second of the Two ; " as he was 
also called "Es-Sadeeq" — " The True Friend." His 
name Aboo Bekr, " Father of the Virgin," was assumed 
later in life, when his daughter Ayeshah was married to 
the prophet at nine years of age. 

It was a close personal friendship, not a mere " modal 
alliance," that bound these two to each other. "Ah, thou 
for whom I would sacrifice father and mother, white hairs 
are hastening upon thee," said Aboo Bekr tenderly, when 
he saw that the prophet's beard was graying. Of Aboo 
Bekr's place in the prophet's heart the poet Hassan sang: 



1 86 Impelling Religious Movements. 

"And the Second of the Two in the glorious cave, 
While around the foes were searching ; 
When the Two had ascended the mountain together. 
And they knew that the prophet loved him above all 

the world besides ; 
He held no one equal to him." 

It is said that when Muhammad heard these lines from 
the poet he " laughed so heartily as to show his back 
teeth, and said, ' Thou hast spoken truly, O Hassan ! It 
is just as thou hast said.'" Such a friendship could not 
but have been a potent factor in the prophet's life-work, 
and the most careful historians have emphasized the fact 
that it was so. Gibbon, in reviewing the case, says : "The 
wealth, the moderation, the veracity of Aboo Bekr con- 
firmed the religion of the Prophet, whom he was destined 
to succeed. By his persuasion ten of the most respect- 
able citizens of Mekka were introduced to the private 
lessons of Islam. They yielded to the voice of reason 
and enthusiasm " — at a time when personal support at 
Mekka was all-important to the prophet's cause. Sir 
William Muir, whose exceptional familiarity with the 
facts and lessons of Muhammadanism gives a peculiar 
value to his opinion, says : " Abu Bekr early cast in his 
lot with the Prophet, and through all the changing scenes 
of his life to the end was to him a pillar of strength." 
" His nature was mild and sympathetic, but not incapable 
of firm purpose where important interests were concerned. 
Impulse and passion rarely prompted his actions; he was 
guided by reason and calm conviction. . . . He was popular 
throughout the city [of Mekka]. . . . To gain such a man 
as a staunch adherent of his claims was for Mahomet a 
most important step." 



Impelling Religious Movements, 187 

Sprenger, who wrote his authoritative life of Muhammad 
after a careful study, in the East, of original sources of 
information, is yet more unqualified and emphatic in his 
testimony to the importance of Aboo Bekr's friendship. 
" The first believers in Mohammad after his family, and 
those who contributed most towards the progress of the 
new doctrine, were Abu Bakr and his friends. . . . Abu 
Bakr . . . was staunch as a friend, and made by nature to 
work out the ideas of others. . . . He was to all appear- 
ance the confidant and friend of the prophet, with whom 
he discussed, during the transition period, his doubts and 
speculations. . . . The faith of Abu Bakr is, in my opin- 
ion, the greatest guarantee of the sincerity of Mohammad 
in the beginning of his career ; and he did more for the 
success of the Islam than the prophet himself. His having 
joined Mohammad lent respectability to his cause ; he 
spent seven-eighths of his property, . . . when he embraced 
the new faith, towards its promotion at Makkah ; and he 
continued the same course of liberality at Madynah ; and 
six of the earliest and most talented and respectable of 
converts who joined Mohammad did so at his persua- 
sion; and they had been, evidently, prepared by him long 
before the mission." 

Nor was it only in the beginning of Muhammad's mis- 
sion that Aboo Bekr's power was manifest as the " Second 
of the Two." Always the friend and counselor of the 
prophet, and his right arm in times of conflict, Aboo 
Bekr was, during the prophet's last illness, deputed by 
Muhammad to take his place in leading the public pray- 
ers, when the prophet was no longer able to perform this 
service himself. And when at last the tired head of 



1 88 Impelling Religious Movements. 

Muhammad rested in death on the bosom of Aboo Bekr's 
daughter, and the despairing cry went forth that the 
" Prophet of God " was dead, then, more than ever 
before, the Second of the Two stood out for both him- 
self and his friend, in the beauty and potency of a death- 
less friendship. Omar, the strong-armed supporter of 
Muhammad, who was a rival with Alee (the prophet's 
son-in-law) for the succession to the prophet's power as 
khaleef, was afraid to admit the fa6i of the prophet's 
death, lest his foliowers should be in despair ; and his 
cry was that the prophet was only in a trance, from 
which he would shortly awake. But Aboo Bekr was 
too true to his friend and to his friend's faith for 
such a falsehood. Love led him first to his friend's 
cold body, and then to the defense of his friend's mis- 
sion. Hastening to the door of Ayeshah's apartments, 
" he drew aside the curtain, entered, and, stooping down, 
kissed the face of his departed friend. ' Sweet wast thou 
in life,' he said, 'and sweet thou art in death, dearer than 
father and mother to me ! Yes, thou art dead, and [re- 
ferring to Omar's wild words without] thou art too pre- 
cious for the Lord to give thee to drink the bitter cup a 
second time.' " And then Aboo Bekr covered the face of 
his dead friend, and rose up to carry on that dead friend's 
life-work. " Is it Muhammad, or the God of Muhammad, 
whom you worship ? " he asked of Omar and of the panic- 
stricken multitude. " Whosoever among you has believed 
in Muhammad, let him know that Muhammad is dead. 
But he who has believed in the God of Muhammad, let 
him continue to serve him ; for he is still alive, and 
never dies.' Even Omar recognized in this the power of 



Impelling Religious Movements. 189 

Muhammad's other self, and he instantly gave deference 
to Aboo Bekr as the prophet's successor. Alee also 
acquiesced in this, and he who had been the life-long 
bosom friend of Muhammad continued Muhammad's 
life-work. 

It was Aboo Bekr who compiled and edited the de- 
tached suras of the Quran, which, up to the time of the 
prophet's death, had been kept, as originally recorded, 
" on palm -leaves, and the shoulder -bones of mutton," 
and on other stray materials, without order or connec- 
tion, in a chest in the custody of one of the prophet's 
wives. And when Aboo Bekr's personal work was done, 
he designated Omar as his successor in the khaleefate, 
and so the sway of his influence passed on to the genera- 
tions following. There is a double fitness in the term 
by which the theologians of Islam call a Muhammadan 
El-Habeeb, The Friend ; for the Muhammadans are the 
followers and representatives of The Friends, — Muham- 
mad El-Ameen, and Aboo Bekr Es-Sadeeq: The Faith- 
ful One, and The True Friend. Those two have already 
numbered more than four thousand millions in the pass- 
ing centuries, and " the end is not yet." 

It was while Muhammad was starting out on his mis- 
sion, with the aid and stimulus of Aboo Bekr's friendship, 
early in the seventh century, that there grew up in the 
ancient city of Tarsus a lad named Theodore, who was 
destined to do a great work for Christendom in the then 
far West, under the impelling power of a friend's affec- 
tionate devotion. Trained in the best schools of Tarsus 
and Athens, Theodore found his way to Rome, — possibly 
in company with the Emperor Constans. There he won 



1 90 Impelling Religious Movements. 

the friendship of an abbot named Hadrian, and this friend- 
ship it was that shaped his life-course. A strong man 
was just then needed to make new beginnings of reli- 
gious activity in Britain. Pope Vitalian selected Hadrian 
to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, as peculiarly suited 
to this work. Hadrian said that his friend Theodore was 
a better man than he for the place ; but when the pope 
pressed the position on Theodore, the latter was unwilling 
to accept it unless his friend Hadrian would go with him, 
to give him sympathy and stimulus and counsel. Then 
it was that the two friends went together from Rome to 
Canterbury, as if to illustrate and emphasize the power 
of friendship in impelling a religious movement of im- 
portance. 

Theodore of Tarsus was the seventh Archbishop of 
Canterbury. Hadrian was his friend and co-worker from 
the beginning. Together they journeyed through the 
ecclesiastical realm, and together they planned for its 
advancement in one line and another. Schools were 
founded, learning was promoted, Christian work was 
organized, the interests of the church were looked after 
closely. " It is difficult, if not impossible, to overstate 
the debt which England, Europe, and Christian civ- 
ilization owe to the work of Theodore," says Bishop 
Stubbs. " He was the real organizer of the adminis- 
trative system of the English Church, and in that work 
laid the foundation of English national unity. He 
brought the learning and culture of the Eastern em- 
pire into the West, and, with the aid of Hadrian and 
Benedict Biscop, established schools from which the 
scholars and missionaries of the following century went 



Impelling Religious Movements. 191 

out to rekindle the light of Christian culture in France 
and the recently converted parts of Germany; and thus 
. . . formed a most important link between ancient and 
modern life. . . . Both his character and his work seem to 
place him among the first and greatest of the saints whom 
God has used for the building up of the church and de- 
velopment of the culture of the world." Whatever was 
thus done by Theodore as Archbishop of Canterbury 
was an outcome of the friendship of Hadrian ; for it was 
through that friendship that he came to that exalted 
position. And the best work done by Theodore in that 
position was done the better because of the presence and 
sympathy of the friend without whom he would not have 
undertaken the work. 

An important movement in religious thinking, in the 
eleventh century, is represented by Anselm of Aosta, 
successively Abbot of Bee and Archbishop of Canter- 
bury; and in a pre-eminent degree the impelling force 
in the life of Anselm was personal friendship. Anselm 
has been called " the father of orthodox scholasticism," 
" the second Augustine," " the one philosopher of the 
eleventh century." His method of argument for theism 
has been a favorite pattern for Christian thinkers from 
that day to this. His book on the Atonement first gave 
shape to the Church's thought on that great do6lrine. 
The conflict that he waged, single-handed, with the kings 
of England, had its echoes, in religious warfare, for five 
centuries thereafter. Anselm was an original thinker, a 
dauntless hero, and a peerless friend. Because of these 
qualities it was that he made his impress on his own age 
and on ages following. 



192 Impelling Religious Movements. 

Lanfranc of Lombardy, prior of the monastery at Bee 
in Normandy, seems to have been the first friend who 
was an impelling force in the career of Anselm. Anselm 
came, as a young man, from Aosta to Bee to study under 
Lanfranc, who was then a famous teacher. Young as 
Anselm was, he was already a stronger thinker than 
Lanfranc, but Lanfranc was more energetic in practical 
affairs. " Teacher and pupil," says Dean Church, " be- 
sides being both Italians, had much to draw them 
together ; and a friendship began between them, which, 
in spite of the difference between the two men, and the 
perhaps unconscious reserve caused by it, continued to 
the last genuine and unbroken." Anselm came to love 
and trust Lanfranc without reserve, and submitted him- 
self to his guidance. It was through Lanfranc's counsel 
that Anselm became a monk. Lanfranc secured a posi- 
tion for Anselm as teacher at Bee. When Lanfranc was 
appointed to the archbishopric of Canterbury, by the 
choice of William the Conqueror, Anselm succeeded to 
his place as prior, and subsequently became abbot, of 
Bee. Visiting Canterbury as the friend of the arch- 
bishop, Anselm came to be known in England, and 
finally to be looked upon, when Lanfranc was dead, as 
the natural successor of his friend as the ecclesiastical 
head of the Church in England. And so it followed that 
Anselm's friendship for Lanfranc was the means of bring- 
ing Anselm into the exalted position that enabled him to 
exhibit his peculiar power, and to do his peculiar work 
in the world. 

Friendship was a prevailing sentiment in Anselm's na- 
ture, and it shone transcendently there. When he was 



Impelling Religious Movements. 193 

promoted over his seniors at Bee, at the time of Lan- 
franc's going to England, there was no little jealousy on 
the part of those who were thus slighted. Among others 
there was a young monk named Osbern, who was par- 
ticularly bitter against the new prior. In a spirit of love, 
Anselm first bore patiently with this opposer, then he 
gave extra attention to him ; finally he watched over him 
with unwearied devotion in a siege of sickness, and thus 
came to be his truest and tenderest friend. And when 
that new charge of his heart was dead, Anselm was 
overwhelmed with sorrow lest Osbern had died unfor- 
given of God. Then it was that he showed what it was 
for him to be a friend. Writing to a dearly loved and 
highly honored Christian brother, he asked that what- 
ever prayers would be offered for his soul, when he was 
dead, by those who loved him, might now be offered for 
the soul of Osbern, even though he himself must suffer 
for their lack. " I beseech you and all my friends, — 
words I know come short, and feeling is more than I 
can express," he wrote, — " wherever Osbern is, his soul is 
my soul. Let me receive then in him, while I am living, 
whatever I might have hoped for from my friends when 
dead, so that when I am gone they may have no more 
to do. ... I pray and pray and pray, remember me, and 
forget not the soul of Osbern my beloved. If I seem 
to be too burdensome to thee, forget me and remember 
him." 

Such a friend as Anselm would be showing his friend- 
ship as long as he lived. When Osbern was dead and 
Lanfranc was dead, it was Eadmer of Canterbury toward 
whom Anselm's friendship went out for the remainder of 

13 



194 Impelling Religious Movements. 

his lifetime. It was on his first visit to Canterbury that 
Anselm made the acquaintance of Eadmer, who was then 
but a youth. Afterwards the two became united in closest 
friendship. Eadmer was the loved and trustful companion 
of Anselm, at home and abroad, in the most momentous 
experiences of the great thinker's life ; and when An- 
selm's worn body finally rested by the side of his first 
friend Lanfranc at Canterbury, his latest friend Eadmer 
wrote his life-story for future generations. Because of 
Anselm's friendship for Lanfranc, Anselm came to the 
eminence that gave him scope for his great powers. Be- 
cause of Anselm's friendship for Osbern, Anselm rose to 
a height of sacred self-abnegation that only friendship 
could reach. Because of Anselm's friendship for Ead- 
mer, the record of Anselm's elevation of personal life was 
passed down the ages in the words of Eadmer. More- 
over, the epoch-making work of Anselm on the Incar- 
nation and Atonement {Cur Deus Homo?) is said to 
have been planned primarily as a means of giving light 
to the troubled mind of Eadmer. 

Early in the thirteenth century there arose two new 
workers for Christ and for their fellows, — " Francis in Italy 
and Dominic in Spain, — who came, full of the primitive 
spirit of the gospel, to renew the religious life and bring 
a fresh flood of genuine spiritual influence upon the 
world." The influential orders of mendicant friars, the 
Franciscans and the Dominicans, were founded by these 
two men ; and, for a period, the work of these orders 
was a potent factor in the teachings and doings of the 
Christian Church. Friendship had its part in impelling 
and directing the religious movements thus inaugurated. 



Impelling Religious Movements, 195 

Francis of Assisi was brought up in wealth and pleasure- 
seeking, but, in consequence of a severe illness, and of a 
vision that gave him specific direction in duty, he deter- 
mined to devote his life to evangelizing and reforms. 
While his plans for a new order of evangelists were still 
incomplete, a friendship formed by him with a young 
girl of noble family, in his native town, did much to 
influence his life and hers, and to promote the larger life- 
work of both. Francis of Assisi was thirty years old, 
handsome, eloquent, full of piety and zeal. Chiara Sciffi, 
afterwards known as St. Clare, was not yet eighteen when 
she was moved to leave her home and come to the saintly 
leader whose praise was on all lips, telling him that she 
was ready to commit herself to his guidance, and to be 
in God's service as he should direct. " This circum- 
stance threw great luster over both his person and his 
enterprise," says the historian Engelhardt; and it had 
much to do with securing the wonderful start gained by 
the Franciscans on the one hand and by the Clarisses on 
the other. Within fifty years from its founding, the Or- 
der of Franciscans numbered eight thousand monasteries, 
comprising two hundred thousand friars; and it was one 
of the world-forces. 

Mrs. Oliphant, as a biographer of St. Francis, referring 
to the first coming of this " devout, spotless, saintly 
maiden " to the earnest and devoted man of God, says 
appreciatively : " This was the beginning of one of those 
tender and touching friendships which are to the student 
of history like green spots in the desert ; and which gave to 
the man and the woman thus voluntarily separated from 
all the joys of life a certain human consolation in the 



196 Impelling Religious Movements. 

midst of their hardships. They can have seen each other 
but seldom, for it was one of the express stipulations of 
the Franciscan rule that the friars should refrain from all 
society with women, and have only the most sparing and 
reserved intercourse with their sisters in religion. . . . But 
he sent to her to ask enlightenment from her prayers 
when any difficulty was in his way. He went to see her 
when he was in trouble. . . . Once the two friends ate to- 
gether at a sacramental meal, the pledge and almost the 
conclusion on earth of that tenderest, most disinterested, 
and unworldly love which existed between them. That 
he was sure of her sympathy in all things, of her prayers 
and spiritual aid, whatsoever he might be doing, where- 
soever he might be, no doubt was sweet to Francis in all 
his labors and trials." " The world has jeered at the 
possibility of such friendships from its earliest age," con- 
tinues Mrs. Oliphant, " and yet they have always existed 
— one of the most exquisite and delicate of earthly ties. 
Gazing back into that far distance over the graves, not 
only of those two friends, but of a hundred succeeding 
generations, a tear of grateful sympathy comes into the 
student's eye. He is glad to believe that, all those years, 
Francis could see, in his comings and goings, the cloister 
of Clara ; and that this sacred gleam of human fellow- 
ship, — love purified of all self-seeking, — tender, visionary, 
celestial affection sweetened their lives." Nor can it be 
doubted that much of the best exhibit of saintliness in the 
beginnings of the Franciscan and Clarissan orders was 
due to the power of this friendship between St. Francis 
and St. Clare. 

Foremost among the representative men in the new 



Impelling Religious Movements. 197 

orders of Dominicans and of Franciscans, during the 
first century of their existence, were Thomas Aquinas 
of the Dominicans and Bonaventura of the Francis- 
cans. These two great men were attached personal 
friends, and their friendship was a shaping force in 
their lives and teachings. Thomas Aquinas is known 
as the Angelic Doctor, and Bonaventura as the Seraphic 
Doctor. The two men were near of an age, and they 
were attached friends almost from boyhood. " They 
both had dedicated their lives to God in the same 
year," and they were helpers of each other's faith, 
while working toward the same end in their rival or- 
ders. " Each was different from the other," says a 
Roman Catholic biographer of the first-named of the 
two, " and each found in the other that which was want- 
ing in himself, and in that sweet discovery experienced 
the full harmony of his entire being. Bonaventura loved 
to look into the placid, earnest soul of Thomas as into a 
deep glassy sea with its marvelous transparency and aw- 
ful stillness ; whilst Thomas was roused and brightened 
by the ardent, outpouring nature of his friend. St. Thomas 
was angelical, St. Bonaventura was seraphic, — the one the 
deep thinker, the other the tender poet. Thomas was 
famous in the schools for the keenness of his thought 
and for his depth and clearness ; Bonaventura, for his 
eloquence and vivacity in exposition. . . . Thomas was 
essentially a child of contemplation ; Bonaventura, of 
a&ivity." 

The friends visited each other from time to time, while 
they were representatives of widely different schools of 
thought, until they died in the same year. On the same 



198 Impelling Religious Movements. 

day they were made doctors of theology in the University 
of Paris ; and they were side by side while putting upon 
others the impress of their interdependent yet independent 
natures. Each gained from the other that without which 
he could never have been his best self, or have done his 
best work. Thomas, being the stronger character of 
the two, was enabled to gain most from this friendship, 
and therefore to be its best representative; but Bona- 
ventura was himself a great gainer through being a 
means of greater gain to his friend. Thomas Aquinas 
was a prince of scholastic thinkers. His thinking, as 
tinged by the color of his friend's saintly feeling, has 
become the thinking of the Roman Catholic Church for 
to-day. It is his liturgy, in the office and mass for the 
solemn feast of Corpus Christi, that gives expression to 
the profoundest feeling of the devout worshipers of that 
communion, in their holiest adorations ; and this liturgy 
seems to have had a measure of its inspiration from the 
suggestion of Bonaventura to Thomas as to the source 
of his own inspirings. When Thomas asked Bonaven- 
tura out of what books he obtained the sublime thoughts 
that appeared in his writings, Bonaventura pointed to a 
figure of the body of Christ, saying, " There is the book ! " 
Afterwards, Thomas gave himself to writing about the 
Holy Body of Christ. It is said, indeed, that Pope Ur- 
ban IV. had given instructions to the two great teachers, 
at the same time, for the construction of this liturgy for 
the feast of Corpus Christi ; but that, when Bonaventura 
saw the work of Thomas while it was still in progress, 
he cast into the flames, as unworthy in comparison, that 
which he had himself prepared. 



Impelling Religious Movements. 199 

It was a great religious movement, for its time, that 
was begun by Francis of Assisi ; and Clare of Assisi was 
an impelling force in that movement through her loyal 
friendship for its leader. It was a great religious move- 
ment in the realm of thinking and feeling, for a longer 
time than that of his own day, that was begun by Thomas 
Aquinas ; and an impelling force in that movement was 
the friendship for its leader by Bonaventura. 

Among the agencies which quickened the spiritual life 
in the Christian Church at the time, and which prepared 
the way for the Renaissance of literature and art in the 
fifteenth century, and for the great Protestant Reforma- 
tion of the sixteenth century, was the association of 
spiritual -minded Christians known as Brothers of the 
Common Life; the best known representative or producT 
of which is Thomas a Kempis, author of the " Imitation 
of Christ." This association was founded by Gerhard 
Groot, at Deventer, in the latter fourth of the fourteen 
century. Groot's conversion to the truth was distinctly 
a result of "a close and intimate friendship" formed by 
him, at the University of Paris, with Henry Aeger, known 
also as Henry von Kalkar. To this friendship is due, 
under God, all the mighty results of Gerhard Groot's 
devotion to the cause of truth, and of his work in and 
through the association that extended itself so widely 
after its beginning by him. On this point the words 
of Gerhard himself, as cited in his Life by Thomas a 
Kempis, are explicit and conclusive. 

Close personal friendships, among those who were 
brought under the influence of the Brothers of the Com- 
mon Life, had much to do with inspiring and shaping the 



200 Impelling Religious Movements. 

best work of the best workers in that sphere. This was 
peculiarly the case with Thomas a Kempis. "There were 
two valuable friendships which Thomas a Kempis formed 
whilst dwelling with 'The Brothers of the Common 
Life,' " says his latest and most trustworthy biographer. 
"The chief companion of Thomas a Kempis at Deventer, 
and the earliest of his most intimate friends, was Arnold 
of Schoonhaven, a youth of fervent piety, who from child- 
hood was singularly devoted to God." These two friends 
occupied, as schoolmates together, "one little chamber 
and one bed." " The example of his young friend 
Arnold's glowing piety made a deep impression upon 
a Kempis ; " and the ideal thus presented to him of a 
lovingly consecrated life seems to have been the germ, 
as it were, of his outreaching desire for a closer likeness 
to his Saviour, that found its expression in the pages 
of his marvelous book. " Here was the very companion 
every way suited for Thomas a Kempis in his early life 
to promote his growth in grace and holiness, and one in 
whose congenial society he could always find refresh- 
ment and delight. The one became very dear to the 
other, for they found in each other that harmony of soul 
and sympathy of disposition that earnest minds most 
crave after and desire." This is the impartial testimony 
of a Kempis's biographer; and, in view of the facts he 
records, he ejaculates : " How hallowed is the sacred tie 
which thus binds one soul to another ! What a safe- 
guard ! How healthful, cheering, and strengthening ! " 
So long as Arnold lived, he and a Kempis were devoted 
friends. When Arnold died, a Kempis wrote his story, 
thereby setting "before us the example which Thomas 



Impelling Religious Movements. 201 

himself admired and was animated by; for it appears 
from the account which he gives us that in his own esti- 
mation — ever thinking humbly of himself — he fell short 
of his friend's stature in grace, and that, in comparison 
with him, he was not satisfied with his own zeal in 
devotion." 

" The other intimate friend and companion of Thomas 
a Kempis in his early years . . . was John Cacabus, or 
as he was otherwise called John Kessel, Kettel, or Ketel." 
He also was a pupil with a Kempis at the home of The 
Brothers of the Common Life ; and he also was an ex- 
ample and an inspiration to him, as a result of the warm 
intimacy early formed between them, " which quickly 
grew into a great friendship." John Ketel, like Arnold, 
died before a Kempis, leaving the memory of his conse- 
crated living as an incitement to his surviving friend, 
and as a fa6lor in that friend's highest ideal. 

These were the friendships which aided in the shaping 
and impelling of the religious movements begun, or pre- 
pared for, by the association of The Brothers of the Com- 
mon Life, and the writings of Thomas a Kempis. It 
was because of the friendship of Gerhard Groot and 
Henry von Kalkar that The Brothers of the Common Life 
were led to keep alive a love of truth by the study and 
teaching of the Word of God in communities which God 
was preparing for the great reformations approaching. 
It was because of the friendship between Arnold of 
Schoonhaven and John Ketel and Thomas a Kempis 
that the survivor of these three friends was enabled to 
present to the world such an ideal of Christian aspiring 
and such an exhibit of Christian devotion as are found 



202 Impelling Religious Movements. 

in his " Imitation of Christ ; " a book which Matthew 
Arnold calls "the most exquisite document, after those 
of the New Testament, of all that the Christian spirit has 
ever inspired," and which Canon Liddon characterizes 
as a work "which more than any other has caught the 
spirit of the evangelists," and has "touched the heart of 
the world; " a book of which Dr. Johnson declared : "It 
is said to have been printed, in one language or another, 
as many times as there have been months since it first 
came out ; " and of which De Quincey affirmed : " Ex- 
cepting the Bible, but excepting that only in Protestant 
lands, no book known to man has had the same dis- 
tinction. It is the most marvelous bibliographical fa6l 
on record." 

The very men who might seem to have withdrawn 
themselves most religiously from the sway of human 
affection, and to have given themselves up most devotedly 
to an exclusively spiritual communion with God, are 
found, all along the centuries, to have been inspired to 
and shaped in their holiest aspirations by their sacred 
personal friendships. What better proof than this could 
there be that friendship's fullest play has been found, not 
in the dimmer light of Greek paganism, but in the glow 
of the purest Christianity ? 

A young lad under the care of The Brothers of the 
Common Life in Deventer, in the last quarter of the 
fifteenth century, was afterwards known to the world 
as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. From his humble 
beginnings of learning in that school of friendship, Eras- 
mus grew to be, unmistakably, "the greatest teacher of 
his age," and " one of the most gifted men that Europe 



Impelling Religious Movements, 203 

has ever seen." Moreover, he was the most learned and 
brilliant representative of a movement for the correction 
of ecclesiastical abuses, and for the making of the Holy 
Scriptures the guide in religious teaching, that prepared 
the way for the great Protestant Reformation under 
Martin Luther and Henry the Eighth. The monks said 
bitterly, that " Erasmus laid the egg and Luther hatched 
a cockatrice ; " and the historian Froude, in reviewing 
the work of the two reformers, says : " Without Erasmus, 
Luther would have been impossible; and Erasmus really 
succeeded — so much of him as deserved to succeed — in 
Luther's victory." The work of such an epoch-marker 
as Erasmus is worth studying in its causes and impulses; 
and it needs little study to show that that work, as in so 
many other cases, was inspired and impelled by the influ- 
ence of a close personal friendship. Given a start in clas- 
sical learning at Deventer, Erasmus went, after varying 
experiences, to the University of Paris, and thence to 
Oxford University — in pursuit of increased advantages 
in the study of Greek. At Oxford, Erasmus formed a 
friendship with John Colet, a young Englishman, son of 
a lord mayor of London, who had been studying Greek 
in the new classical atmosphere of Italy; and that friend- 
ship proved a shaping force in the life and life-work of 
Erasmus. Colet's name is less known to the world than 
Erasmus's, but Erasmus owes no small measure of his 
best fame to the inspiration and influence of his friend 
Colet. 

John Richard Green, the historian of the English peo- 
ple, says concerning the power of Colet : " The awaken- 
ing of a rational Christianity, whether in England or in 



204 Impelling Religious Movements. 

the Teutonic world at large, begins with the Italian 
studies of John Colet; and the vigor and earnestness of 
Colet were the best proof of the strength with which the 
new movement was to affect English religion. . . . The 
knowledge of Greek seems to have had one almost ex- 
clusive end for him, and this was a religious end. Greek 
was the key by which he could unlock the Gospels and 
the New Testament ; and in these he thought that he 
could find a new religious standing-ground. It was this 
resolve of Colet to throw aside the traditional dogmas of 
his day, and to discover a rational and practical religion 
in the Gospels themselves, which gave its peculiar stamp 
to the theology of the Renascence. His faith stood 
simply on the person of Christ." Speaking of Erasmus, 
Green adds that " his theology ... he derived almost 
without change from Colet." And Drummond, the biog- 
rapher of the Rotterdam scholar, affirms that " the man 
who possessed most interest for Erasmus," while at Ox- 
ford, and exercised most influence over him, was Colet." 
"When I listen to my friend Colet," wrote Erasmus from 
Oxford, " I can fancy I am listening to Plato himself." 
And the record shows that Erasmus's Greek Testament, 
the publishing of which was the most important work 
of his life, was an outcome of his friendship with Colet. 
Meanwhile, of course, the influence of such a man as 
Erasmus could not but have its effect on such a. man 
as Colet. Marquard von Hatstein spoke for others as" 
well as himself when he wrote to Colet, long years after 
the first coming of Erasmus to Oxford : " I seem to my- 
self to see that each of you owes much to the other, but 
which of the two owes most to the other I am doubtful." 



Impelling Religious Movements, 205 

From its beginning the acquaintance of Colet and 
Erasmus was a friendship. Before they had yet met, 
Colet wrote to Erasmus, welcoming him to Oxford, with 
the assurance that he had already heard so much of him 
from others that he was prepared to be his friend. "As 
soon as I have seen you I will be my own pleader, as 
others have been yours in your absence," he said ; " and 
I will commend myself to you and to your wisdom. 
That others should have commended you to me was un- 
becoming ; for the less ought to be commended to the 
greater, the more unlearned to the more highly cultured. 
However, if there is anything within my small means, in 
which I can be either agreeable or useful to you, it shall 
be as readily and ungrudgingly at your service as your 
high merits can desire or claim." In answer to this 
letter, Erasmus wrote : " If I recognized anything at 
all in myself, most courteous sir, deserving of even 
slender praise, I should certainly rejoice, like Hector 
in Naevius, at being praised by you, the object of all 
praises. For I set so high a value on your opinion, that 
your single approbation of me is far pleasanter than if 
the whole forum of Rome were shouting its applause, 
or an ignorant multitude were admiring me, vaster 
than the fabled army of Xerxes. ... In truth, my dear 
Colet, so far from your praises having made me con- 
ceited, I am even more dissatisfied with myself than 
ever, being naturally a little more fastidious. For when 
qualities are affirmed of me which I revere in others but 
miss in myself, it seems like admonishing me what sort 
of person I ought to be." Then, giving an outline of his 
own qualities, as he sees himself, he declares that he is " a 



206 Impelling Religious Movements. 

stranger to ambition, but for friendship most ready ; one 
whose acquaintance with literature is but scanty, but his 
admiration of it most ardent ; one who worships integrity 
in others, but counts his own as none ; yielding readily 
to all in learning, but to none in loyalty ; . . . a man of 
few words ; in short, one from whom, you would expe6l 
nothing but qualities of heart." " If you, Colet," he 
concludes, " can love such a man, and deem him worthy 
of your acquaintance, then set Erasmus down as your 
own, completely your own." 

And from that beginning the two scholars were friends, 
in an unbroken friendship and in intimate companionship 
or close correspondence, until, twenty-one years later, 
Colet died in London, and Erasmus closed a letter con- 
cerning him from Louvain with the tender words : " Thus 
far have I written, grieving for the death of Colet; a death 
so bitter to me that the loss of no one for the last thirty 
years has afflicted me more. ... In the public interest I 
cannot but lament the loss of so rare a pattern of Chris- 
tian piety, so unique a preacher of Christian doctrine. 
And on my own private account I lament so constant a 
friend, so matchless a patron. For what alone remains, 
in lieu of funeral obsequies, this duty I will discharge for 
him ; if my writings are of any avail, I will not suffer the 
memory of such a man to die out among posterity." " I 
long," again wrote Erasmus, "to dedicate his memory to 
posterity;" . . . "such a teacher, such a patron, such a 
friend ! " One of Colet's latest letters to Erasmus shows 
how tenderly he ever bore his friend in remembrance dur- 
ing their prolonged separations. Erasmus had sent a new 
book to the Bishop of Rochester, together with a letter 



Impelling Religious Movements. 207 

containing some kindly greetings to Colet. At this Co- 
let wrote reproachfully : " I am half angry with you, 
Erasmus, for sending greetings to me in letters written 
to others, and not to myself. For, though I have no 
mistrust of our friendship, yet this indirect greeting in 
letters to other people makes others conclude that you 
are not so attached to me as you really are. ... I take 
such pleasure in your affection that I am pained when I 
see you less mindful of me than of others." 

And these two friends — helped and cheered mutually 
in their common life-work by and through their friend- 
ship — did much to prepare the way for the great Refor- 
mation approaching. The writings and sermons of Colet 
had power over the leaders of church and state and popular 
sentiment in England in the direction of needed reform. 
The issuing, by Erasmus, of the first Greek Testament 
ever published — in the very line of Colet's wishing and 
teaching from the days of his sojourn in Italy — was the 
opening of a new standard of religious truth to the 
Christian scholars of the world ; and his parallel Latin 
translation, published with that Greek Testament, "be- 
came," as has been said, "the starting-point of modern 
exegetical science." How much, indeed, the Christian 
Church owes to-day to that friendship of Erasmus and 
Colet ! 

Foot-hills of the great mountain range of the Protestant 
Reformation were these subordinate reformations, in the 
revival of spiritual life through the work of The Brothers 
of the Common Life, on the Continent, and in the revival 
of Bible study and biblical criticism, as led by Erasmus and 
Colet in Great Britain. And as each of these foot-hills is 



208 Impelling Religious Movements. 

shown to have been surmounted by means of a close and 
loving friendship between those who could never have 
been what they were, or have done what they did, without 
the inspirings of that friendship; so it will be found that 
the lofty summit-peak of that Reformation range, in the 
work of Martin Luther, was capped and turned by means 
of the same sacred sentiment of human friendship, with its 
pre-eminent and surpassing power over the sons of men. 
The stamp of Luther's personal friendships is on every 
phase of his life-work, from his earliest peaceful school- 
davs to the close of his stormiest career as a reformer ; 
and to track the record of Luther's struggles and suc- 
cesses is to disclose the hidings of his friendship's power. 
While Luther was yet a student at Erfurt, his close 
personal friendships with members of a " circle of young 
humanists " began to have a shaping influence on his life 
and character. One of these friends was John Jager, 
known as Crotus Rubianus ; and another was George 
Spalatin (or Burkhardt of Spelt). Subsequently Spala- 
tin, as court preacher and private secretary, and yet 
more as trusted friend and adviser, of Elector Frederick 
of Saxony, was a strong arm of support to his never- 
forgotten friend Luther. " But what am I not indebted 
to you ! " wrote Luther to Spalatin after long years of 
abiding confidence in him. Crotus, also, proved an 
effective helper of Luther, in the stormiest days of the 
reformer's life, by his brilliant writings in behalf of his 
course and cause, in both Germany and Italy ; and in 
those days he reminded Luther of the " close intimacy " 
in which they had lived as friends at Erfurt. Like St. 
Augustine, Luther was first aroused to profound anxiety 



Impelling Religious Movements. 209 

concerning his spiritual condition by the sudden death 
of a loved friend. This event it was that decided him in 
his choice of a monastic life. He had entered the uni- 
versity with a purpose of studying law. 

In the convent at Erfurt, the heavy-hearted Luther 
quickly won the confidence and sincere friendship of his 
ecclesiastical superior, John von Staupitz. It was Stau- 
pitz who first led Luther toward the light, when he was 
groping helplessly in spiritual darkness ; and, again, 
Luther was a helper of Staupitz in making progress in 
the new life which they lived together as friends in Christ. 
Luther, as Kostlin tells us, spoke of Staupitz, throughout 
his life, with grateful affection as his spiritual father, and 
thanked God that, by this friend, he had been helped out 
of his temptations, when, without him, he would have 
been swallowed up in them, and perished. On the other 
hand, Staupitz, in the very last year of his life, wrote to 
Luther in affirmation of his " unchanging love, ' passing 
the love of woman ; ' " and in grateful acknowledgment 
of the fact that this dear friend first led him "to the 
living pastures, from the husks for the pigs." It was 
Staupitz who secured the appointment of his young 
friend Luther, at twenty-five years of age, as Professor 
of Philosophy at Wittemberg, and so gave to the re- 
former a pedestal from which he might command the 
world's attention. It was Staupitz whose entreaties in- 
duced that friend to enter the pulpit and begin the 
preaching that still echoes around the world. It was 
Staupitz, again, who induced that friend to be made a 
" Biblical Doctor," and so to take that oath of fidelity to 
the Holy Scriptures which D'Aubigne looks upon "as 



2 1 o Impelling Religious Movements. 

one of the causes of the revival of the Church " — to a 
recognition of the one infallible standard of truth. In 
short, it was Luther's friend " Staupitz who was the 
instrument of God to develop all the gifts and treasures 
hid in Luther," — as only friendship could have aided to 
their developing. 

Spalatin, Crotus, Staupitz, and the unknown friend 
whose death was so impressive an event in Luther's 
history, all had their parts as friends in directing and 
shaping the career of the great reformer; but it was 
Philip Melanchthon who was his transcendent friend, 
and whose friendship was the force of forces in swaying 
wisely his mighty personality from the beginning to 
the close of his life as a reformer. Indeed, Luther 
was Luther because Melanchthon was Melanchthon, and 
because Luther and Melanchthon were friends. 

It was at Wittemberg that the two reformers, as fellow- 
professors, became friends. Melanchthon was appointed 
Professor of Greek in that university at twenty-one years 
of age, Luther having already been ten years in his pro- 
fessorship. Their friendship, like that of David and 
Jonathan, seems to have been " love at first sight," and 
to have continued with growing fervor until death. 
" Luther at once," says Kostlin, " recognized with joy 
the marvelous wealth of talent and knowledge in his new 
colleague. . . . We know of no other instance where 
Luther formed a friendship so rapidly ; and the more inti- 
mately he knew him the more highly he esteemed him." 
It was only six days after Melanchthon's arrival at Wittem- 
berg that Luther wrote to Spalatin of the "astonishment 
and admiration " which the new professor had excited, 



Impelling Religious Movements. 211 

and which led all to "wonder and rejoice over him." 
Less than a month after this Luther went from Wittem- 
berg to appear before the Diet at Augsburg ; and, in writing 
to Melanchthon of his purpose to stand by his convictions 
at any cost, he said, in loving positiveness : " I will rather 
die, and, what is the hardest fate, lose for ever the sweet 
intercourse with you, than revoke anything that it was 
right for me to say." Already death itself was a lesser 
matter than the interruption of that new and dear friend- 
ship ! And Melanchthon wrote of his new-found friend : 
" If there is one whom I dearly love, and whom I em- 
brace with my whole heart, it is Martin Luther." 

As is natural in such a friendship, each friend esteemed 
the other better than himself; each looking up to the other 
in that affectionate reverence that is a factor in every true 
friendship. When sneeringly told that Melanchthon was 
only a " grammarian," Luther responded vigorously : " I, 
the doctor of philosophy and theology, am not ashamed 
to yield the point if this grammarian thinks differently 
from myself. I have done so often already, and I do the 
same daily; because of the gifts with which God has so 
richly filled this fragile vessel, I honor the work of God 
in him." Again he said : " Philip is a wonder to us all. If 
the Lord will, he will beat many Martins as the mightiest 
enemy to the Devil and scholasticism." And yet again: 
" This little Grecian is even my master in theology." 
Long after this he wrote : " I am the rough woodman 
who has to make a path ; but Philip goes quietly and 
peacefully along it. builds and plants, sows and waters, 
at his pleasure." Meanwhile, in a similar spirit of de- 
votedness, Melanchthon said : " Luther supplies the place 



212 Impelling Religious Movements. 

of all my friends. He is greater and more admirable in 
my sight than I dare express. You know how Alcibiades 
admired Socrates; but I admire Luther after another and 
a Christian fashion. . . . As often as I contemplate Luther, 
I find him constantly greater than himself." 

To each friend the life of the other was dearer than 
his own life. When Luther would face death at Worms, 
Melanchthon begged to go with him. Only when Luther 
insisted that both lives must not be needlessly risked to- 
gether, did Melanchthon consent to stay behind ; and even 
then his regretful cry was : " Would to God that he had 
allowed me to go with him ! " While Luther was a rest- 
less captive at the Wartburg, Melanchthon moaned out : 
" If he dies, what hope will remain for us ? Would to 
God that, at the cost of my own wretched life, I could 
retain in the world that soul which is its fairest orna- 
ment ! Oh, what a man ! We never appreciated him 
rightly." When, on the other hand, Melanchthon seemed 
at the point of death, and longed to be at rest, Luther 
felt that he could not let him go, and that he would not. 
" No, no, Philip ; we cannot spare you yet," he said. And, 
with prayer and soup, Luther struggled for Melanchthon's 
life. The prayer Melanchthon could not hinder. When 
he refused the soup, Luther said in vehemence : " Philip, 
take this soup, or I will excommunicate you." Luther 
prevailed, and Melanchthon recovered. " God gave me 
my brother Melanchthon back, in answer to my prayers," 
said Luther joyously to his wife; and Luther deemed 
life better worth living because his friend Melanchthon 
was to share it with him. Nor was it only in love and 
reverence and sympathy that these friends were fellow- 



Impelling Religious Movements. 213 

helpers in the great Reformation. Each did his own 
work, while the two worked together as neither could 
have worked by himself in that epoch of religious his- 
tory. Luther's individual work the world is familiar 
with ; but Melanchthon's work, apart from, as well as with, 
his friend Luther, is not as well known as it should be. 

While Luther was a prisoner at the Wartburg, Me- 
lanchthon prepared his Loci Communes, or " Common 
Places of Theology," in which he presented a system of 
theology as drawn directly from the Scriptures. This 
work in itself was of vast importance in shaping the theo- 
logical opinions of the newly awakened scholars of that 
day. Erasmus, while avowing his dissent from its author 
at a number of points, characterized the work as "a 
wondrous army drawn up in battle array against the 
tyrannous battalions of the false doctors." Calvin com- 
mended it most warmly, as he presented it subsequently 
to the French people. Kostlin says that in this work 
Melanchthon " actually laid the foundation for the dogma 
of the Evangelical Church ; " and D'Aubigne declares 
that " next to the Bible, this is the book that has possibly 
contributed most to the establishment of the evangelical 
doctrine." That this systematic arrangement of Bible 
teachings had its influence on Luther's opinions, as well 
as on those of Calvin, and, through Calvin, on those of 
his friend Knox, will hardly admit of a question. Through- 
out Luther's life, says D'Aubigne, "this work was the ob- 
ject of his admiration. The disconnected sounds that his 
hand, in the deep emotion of his soul, had drawn from the 
harp of the prophets and apostles, were here blended to- 
gether in one enchanting harmony. . . . Hence he never 



214 Impelling Religious Movements. 

ceased recommending the study of this work to the 
youths who came to Wittemberg in search of knowl- 
edge. ' If you desire to become theologians,' he would 
say, 'read Melanchthon.'" 

Melanchthon was a sharer with Luther in the great work 
of giving the Bible to the common people of the German 
race in a fresh vernacular translation. Melanchthon 
brought to the aid of Luther profounder scholarship for 
its prosecution. Both the knowledge and the graceful style 
of Melanchthon gave increased value to that translation, 
beyond all that the sturdy vigor, the sound wisdom, and 
the unflinching fidelity to truth inherent in Luther's na- 
ture, could impart to it. Much, very much, of the won- 
derful hold that Luther's translation of the Bible has had 
on the German mind, down to the present hour, is due 
to the fact that it was made by Luther and Melanchthon 
working together as helpful friends. Again it was Me- 
lanchthon who drew up the regulations and instructions 
for the new ministers and people in Saxony, comprising 
" the fundamental principles of evangelical doctrine as 
they were henceforth to be accepted by the congrega- 
tions ; " which, with a preface by Luther, were formally 
published, by the elector's command, in 1528. More 
than this, it was Melanchthon who wrote the famous Augs- 
berg Confession, that, as Dr. SchafT says, " struck the 
key-note to other evangelical confessions, and strength- 
ened the cause of the Reformation everywhere." It was 
of this document that Luther wrote, when it had been 
sent to him for his revision : " I know of nothing by 
which I could better it or change it, nor would it be 
becoming; for I cannot move so softly and gently." 



Impelling Religious Movements. 215 

Finally, it was Melanchthon and Luther who together 
outlined the Saxon school system, which became the 
foundation of the magnificent school system of all Ger- 
many, and which has proved a germ of many of the best 
educational methods, Protestant and Romanist, all the 
world over. 

How much, indeed, this world owes to the fact that 
the rugged nature and imperious will of Martin Luther 
had the counterbalance and check of the gentle spirit 
and wise heart of Philip Melanchthon, in the surpassing 
friendship of these two reformers! How well it was 
for the cause of truth, that all the finer qualities of 
Melanchthon's nature were made available for a service 
they could never have performed by themselves, through 
his being appreciated and loved by such a stalwart and 
fearless Christian warrior as Luther! 

Correspondent with the friendship of Luther and 
Melanchthon as an impelling force on the mountain height 
of the Protestant Reformation, there was the friendship 
of Knox and Calvin as a factor in shaping the religious 
thought and ecclesiastical polity of a large portion of the 
Anglo-Saxon race. John Calvin's view of religious truth 
brought into prominence the place and privilege of the 
individual Christian in his relations to both church and 
state, in a light that was new to his times if not indeed 
new in the world's history. His system of doctrine was 
linked with a system of ecclesiastical government and 
responsibility and discipline that had its bearing on the 
life of the community as well as of the individual. " It 
was this system," says John Richard Green, " that Cal- 
vin by a singular fortune was able to put into actual 



2 1 6 Impelling Religious Movements. 

working in the little city of Geneva, where the party of 
the Reformation had . . . called him in 1536 to be their 
spiritual head. Driven out, but again recalled, his influ- 
ence made Geneva from 1541 the center of the Protestant 
world. The refugees who crowded to the little town 
from persecution in France, in the Netherlands, in Eng- 
land, found there an exact and formal doctrine, a rigid 
discipline of manners and faith, a system of church 
government, a form of church worship, stripped, as they 
held, of the last remnant of the superstitions of the past. 
Calvin himself, with his austere and frugal life, his enor- 
mous industry, his power of government, his quick de- 
cision, his undoubting self-confidence, his unswerving 
will, remained for three and twenty years, till his death 
in 1564, supreme over Protestant opinion. " 

In 1554, John Knox, an exile from his own land, found 
his way to Geneva, and made the acquaintance and won 
the friendship of Calvin. The two reformers were drawn 
to each other from the start, and their friendship deep- 
ened and strengthened during the remaining years of the 
life of Calvin. Knox's opinion of Geneva was expressed 
when he spoke of it, in a letter to an English corres- 
pondent, as "this place, where I fear nor shame to say is 
the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in the 
earth since the days of the apostles." Knox decided to 
remain near his new-found friend during his enforced 
exile from his home; and while under the influence of 
that friend's teachings and example he wrote suggestions 
to his co-workers in England and Scotland concerning 
important matters of both doctrine and practice. Thus it 
was in accordance with an appeal from Knox at Geneva 



Impelling Religious Movements. 217 

that, in 1557, the Protestant nobles in Scotland united 
with other Protestant leaders there "in an engagement 
which," as Green suggests, "became memorable as the 
first among those covenants which were to give shape 
and color to Scotch religion," and which "marked a 
new epoch in the strife of religions," in its pledge to 
maintain the liberty of conscience in spite of all demands 
of the state. From this beginning the work in Scotland 
went on toward its completion; and, as the same his- 
torian declares, Knox was the "one well-known figure 
[who] embodied the moral strength of the new move- 
ment;" and "the moral power which Knox created was 
to express itself through the ecclesiastical forms which 
had been devised by the genius of Calvin." 

Pointing out the importance of the movement, which, 
through the leadership of Knox in accordance with the 
views of Calvin, led to the formation of the Scotch Kirk, 
Green says, emphatically: "In that mighty elevation of 
the masses which was embodied in the Calvinist doc- 
trines of election and grace, lay the germs of the modern 
principles of human equality. . . . It is the Scotch people 
that rises into being under the guise of the Scotch Kirk. 
. . . Strange to modern ears as their language may be, 
bigoted and narrow as their temper must often seem, it 
is well to remember the greatness of the debt we owe 
them. It was their stern resolve, their energy, their 
endurance, that saved Scotland from a civil and religious 
despotism, and that, in saving the liberty of Scotland, 
saved English liberty as well." Whether one agrees or 
disagrees with this historian as to the relation of Cal- 
vinism to the individual and to the state, it will be admit- 



2 1 8 Impelling Religious Movements. 

ted, as proven, that Scotland came to its plan of church 
government and to its prevalent system of doctrine by 
way of John Calvin ; and that all this was brought about 
directly through the relations of Knox and Calvin as 
personal friends. 

It could, indeed, be shown that John Calvin's earlier 
religious life was largely shaped by his friendship with 
Nicholas Cop and Louis du Tillot, and that John Knox's 
conversion and religious life-direction were due in great 
measure to his enthusiastic friendship for George Wishart; 
but this would only be added evidence of the truth that 
religious reforms owe much to the impelling force of 
personal friendships. It is enough, in this instance, to 
point out the train of consequences from the friendship 
of Knox and Calvin. 

On the hither side of the mountain range of the Great 
Reformation, there rises a rival peak of religious activities 
and influence in the record of Jesuitism; and it would 
even seem that, if it had not been for that newly raised 
barrier to progress, the power of Protestantism would 
have been unchecked and limitless, after the work of the 
lesser and greater reformers in the fifteenth and six- 
teenth centuries. That rival peak also stands as a monu- 
ment to friendship, as do all the peaks of the range that 
it confronts. 

Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish soldier -convert to a re- 
ligious life, was the founder of the " Company of Jesus." 
This organization, which has proved to be the most 
potent agency of influence ever conceived by the mere 
human mind, was immediately the outgrowth of a close 
personal friendship between Loyola, on the one hand, 



Impelling Religious Movements. 219 

and Peter Faber (or Le Fevre) and Francis Xavier on 
the other. Only through such a friendship could such 
results have been a possibility. It was at the College 
of St. Barbara, in Paris, that this friendship had its be- 
ginning. Faber and Xavier were already there, and 
already friends and room-mates, when Loyola entered 
as a student. Each of these three men had fine qualities 
of character in and of himself; but no one of them was 
likely to do any such work as the three together were 
enabled to do; nor could they have been such fellow- 
helpers in their common work if they had not first 
become such friends. Faber and Xavier were about the 
same age, while Loyola was sixteen years their senior; 
but as the latter had begun life as a soldier he was behind 
his juniors in college studies. Faber was, for a time, an 
instructor of Loyola in philosophy ; and this led to their 
closer acquaintance and friendship. 

"It was an advantage to both parties," to be thus 
brought together — as student -instructor and student- 
learner, says Bartoli, the Jesuit biographer of Loyola. 
"The relations thus established between them led to a 
more intimate acquaintance, from whence reciprocal 
attachment and esteem soon arose ; for each possessed 
the species of merit which the other most loved and 
admired. Ignatius could not have desired to meet with 
one more capable of serving his designs, nor Faber with 
a friend more according to his heart." Faber was suited 
to be a friend; Loyola was suited to welcome and use 
a friend. Faber's warm heart ached for the strong sup- 
port of a friend in whom he could confide freely. 
Loyola's active mind and vigorous nature were out- 



220 Impelling Religious Movements, 

reaching toward a friend who would trust implicitly, 
and who would be willing to co-work untiringly with him 
whom he trusted. Faber opened his heart to Loyola, 
and Loyola responded with helpful sympathy. The 
spiritual struggles of Faber, and the courageous devoted- 
ness of Loyola, were a means of bringing the two into a 
common sense of mutual need and mutual joy in friend- 
ship. " It is a spectacle," says Bartoli, " to observe these 
two souls thus penetrating into each other, thus per- 
fecting each other under the all-powerful action of divine 
grace " — operating through their friendship. 

It was after two years of this intimacy as friends that 
Loyola disclosed to Faber, in strictest confidence, his 
purpose of giving himself to a life of peculiar religious 
service, and of going as a missionary to the Holy Land, 
or of putting himself at the call of the Pope for any mis- 
sion among infidels and unbelievers. Faber instantly 
responded to the self-sacrificing impulse of his friend; 
"and, throwing himself into his arms, he conjured him 
to receive him as his associate in this noble and perilous 
enterprise." In that embrace of friendship, with its pledge 
to consecrated co-work, was the beginning of the power- 
fraught movement toward the mighty sway of organized 
Jesuitism. 

After Faber had left the College of St. Barbara, his 
earlier friend and room-mate, Francis Xavier, came into 
relations of friendship with Loyola; and after a time 
Loyola made Xavier also a sharer of his plans for the 
future, and Xavier responded to them with no less 
warmth than Faber. Both Faber and Xavier were friends 
of Loyola before they were linked with him in his pur- 



Impelling Religious Movements. 221 

poses of peculiar service; and each of them became a 
sharer in the work of Loyola because of being- his friend. 
Subsequently there were joined with these friends, in this 
new covenant, four others : Diego Laynez, Alfonso 
Salmeron, Nicolas Alfonso de Bobadilla, and Simon 
Rodriguez. And these seven composed the Company 
of Jesus, or Society of Jesuits, at its beginning. 

As a consequence of that first compact between Ignatius 
Loyola and his personal friends at St. Barbara, with its 
subsequent linkings of friendship in that place of learning, 
Protestantism was hindered in its progress, and Roman- 
ism was given a new lease of power. Through the labors 
of the Society then brought into being, popes have been 
made and unmade; thrones have been set or overturned; 
institutions of learning have been multiplied, far and 
near; the gospel has been preached to many a heathen 
land; persecutions for righteousness' sake have been set 
afoot; the policy of the Church of Rome has been shaped 
and re-shaped anew; and to-day the ends of the earth 
thrill with the vibrations of the plans and purposes of 
Loyola and his college friends. 

An important religious movement in the seventeenth 
century was led by George Fox, in the formation of the 
Society of Friends; and friendship showed its impelling 
force in that movement, as in all such movements. The 
work of the Society of Friends was far greater in the 
community outside of its bounds than within its own 
denominational lines. It did much to promote the prin- 
ciples of peace, of religious toleration, of simplicity in 
dress and manners, of regard for the spirit above the 
letter in Bible study, and of ready submission to the 



222 Impelling Religious Movements. 

divine guidance from within the illumined soul. It had 
a mission, and it fulfilled it; and such a mission must 
needs be aided by friendship. 

In 1652, when Fox was twenty-eight years old, and 
was still young in the work of his religious reform, he 
visited Swarthmore Hall, and was welcomed by its 
hostess Margaret Fell, in the absence of her husband, 
Judge Thomas Fell. She was some ten years older than 
her guest, a woman of an earnest religious nature, already 
seeking the light, and unsatisfied with the religious teach- 
ings she had so far received. No sooner had she heard 
George Fox, than she gave him her confidence; and it 
was not long before he had her assured friendship. This 
friendship had much to do with the progress and suc- 
cesses of the Society of Friends, during the first half- 
century of its existence. Because of her friendship for 
George Fox, Margaret Fell exerted herself in his behalf, 
and in behalf of his fellow-Friends. She interested her 
husband in him and in them; and although her husband 
never joined himself to their Society he had a kindly feel- 
ing toward its members, to the close of his life. In public 
and in private Margaret Fell did what she could to prove 
her friendship for George Fox. When he was in prison 
she sought to secure his release. When he was at liberty 
she gave him encouragement and counsel. His friends 
were her friends. She was ready to do her utmost for 
their welfare. Her social position enabled her to seek 
aid in high places ; and her advocacy of Fox and of the 
Friends was known in Parliament and in palace, as well 
as in the lower courts of justice. Meanwhile she was 
showing her womanly tenderness of feeling in her untir- 



Impelling Religious Movements. 223 

ing ministry of sympathy to the followers of her friend 
Fox in their times of persecution and distress. " It is 
remarkable," says one of their later biographers, "with 
what high esteem and Christian love Margaret Fell 
appears to have been regarded by our early and most 
eminent Friends. She seems to have been generally 
acknowledged as the faithful nursing -mother of the 
flock; and she often addressed them when they were in 
bonds, or otherwise tried, with letters of consolation and 
encouragement. It is also probable [that] she contrib- 
uted largely to the relief of their outward necessities." 

Six years after the friendship began between George 
Fox and Margaret Fell, the latter was left a widow; and 
her sorrow tended to deepen her interest in the truths 
that that friendship had first led her to appreciate. Her 
earnestness in this behalf brought her also into prison 
for conscience' sake, and she and George Fox were at 
the same time held in durance. Her trials, like her ad- 
vocacy, won friends to the cause of the Friends; and 
that cause made progress by means of its hindrances, 
as well as by the impelling of this friendship. When 
George Fox and Margaret Fell had been friends for 
seventeen years, they became also husband and wife, 
eleven years after the death of her first husband. For 
twenty -one years they continued in this new relation; 
but that in no degree lessens the force of the truth that 
they were friends for wellnigh forty years; and that be- 
cause they were friends the cause of the Friends was 
mightily advantaged in their day. 

No new religious movement of the eighteenth century 
was comparable in importance with that which resulted 



224 Impelling Religious Movements. 

in what is known as Methodism, or Wesleyanism, with 

its world-wide sweep of influence; and that movement 

had its inception and its chief impellings in the potency 

of personal friendships. It may be said, indeed, that it 

was as friends, rather than as brothers, — for a brother can 

be also a friend, — that John Wesley and Charles were 

workers together and fellow-helpers in the cause of truth 

as represented in that movement; and it was through the 

friendships made with others by these brother-friends 

severally that the movement extended itself from that 
beginnincr 

Even back of the common work of these two brothers 
at Oxford, there were impellings of personal friend- 
ship, direct and indirect, felt by each of the two sepa- 
rately. Charles Wesley was the gainer by his friendship 
at Westminster School with James Murray, afterwards the 
famous Lord Mansfield. John Wesley's early religious 
experience received impulse and direction from the writ- 
ings of the friendship-inspired Thomas a Kempis, and from 
the earnest words spoken to him directly by a young 
friend at college. Charles Wesley had no such strength 
and positiveness of character as his brother John, but he 
had quite as much attractiveness of spirit and manner; 
and it was by this means of attraction that he won and 
held to himself the young students at Christ College who 
formed the nucleus of the little society which his brother 
was enabled to make use of as the beginning of his greater 
work. It was while John Wesley was absent from Christ 
College, assisting his father in the curacy of Wroote, that 
Charles entered that college and began his work of 
winning friends to himself and to the prayerful study of 



Impelling Religious Movements. 225 

the Bible. John Gambold, one of his college friends, 
and subsequently a Moravian bishop, writing concerning 
his characteristics and spirit, said : " I shall say no more 
of Charles but that he was a man made for friendship ; 
who by his cheerfulness and vivacity would refresh his 
friend's heart; with attentive considerateness would enter 
into and settle all his concerns; so far as he was able 
would do anything for him, great or small ; and by a 
habit of openness and freedom leave no room for mis- 
understanding." Already Charles Wesley and his little 
band of friends at Oxford had won the designation of 
" Methodists," because of their strictness in method of 
conduct and life, when John Wesley returned to college 
from his three years' absence, and became the friend and 
leader of them all. 

The Bible-loving friends at Oxford, of whom Charles 
and John Wesley were the leading spirits, included, be- 
sides themselves, William Morgan, Robert Kirkham, 
John Clayton, Benjamin Ingham, John Gambold, James 
Hervey, and George Whitefield. Although Bible-study 
and prayer and religious communings were a common 
basis of intercourse between these college friends, friend- 
ship rather than any correspondence of religious opinions 
was the tie that held them together while in college, and 
that intensified their power in any work that they did 
individually or collectively while thus associated. Tyer- 
man, a biographer of John Wesley, and of the other 
Oxford Methodists, has laid emphasis on the truth that 
it was not Wesleyanism alone that had power in the 
revival at Oxford, or in the work for the world that was 
then begun there. He points out that these college 

15 



226 Impelling Religious Movements. 

friends who were so dear to one another as friends, in- 
cluded "the Hanoverian and Jacobite, the Methodist and 
Moravian, the Churchman and Dissenter, the Arminian 
and Calvinist, the itinerant evangelist and the parish 
priest;" and that their influence for good told upon the 
Church of England and the Moravian Church, as well as 
in the new field of Methodism. 

Friendship was an impelling force in that Oxford re- 
vival, as in other great revivals ; and it was because of 
Charles Wesley's power of friendship, quite as truly as 
because of John Wesley's genius for administration and 
evangelism, that a religious movement had its beginning 
then and there, with its possibilities of indefinite exten- 
sion in time and space and numbers and spiritual power. 
Methodism is indeed only one result of the friendships 
which bound men together at Oxford under the lead of 
one man who chose the world for his parish, and who 
was resolved that every nook and corner of his parish" 
should be evangelized. 

Modern missions had their most notable beginning in 
the sending out of Moravian missionaries from Herrnhut, 
to the West Indies in 1732, and to Greenland in 1733. 
And this movement had its primary origin in the school- 
boy friendship, at Halle, of Count Zinzendorf and the 
Baron von Watteville, which led them to covenant to- 
gether for evangelistic effort in behalf of the heathen, and 
to form a Christian brotherhood, with a view to such 
effort, under the name Senfkom-Orden, "The Order of 
the Grain of Mustard Seed." It was thirteen years after 
the first forming of this order that the attention of one 
of its leaders was called to the needs of the West India 



Impelling Religious Movements. 227 

slaves in one direction, and of the Greenlanders in an- 
other. Within a year or two more, two friends, under 
the influence of this leader, were led to declare that they 
would, if necessary, be sold into slavery in order to preach 
Christ to the slaves in the West Indies ; and soon, with 
three dollars apiece in their pockets, and a bundle on the 
back of each as their only outfit, they were on their way, 
afoot, for the capital of Denmark, six hundred miles 
away, seeking a passage to the West Indies as mission- 
aries of Christ. Denied a passage from Denmark, they 
sought and found one from Holland. It was but six 
months later that another party of Moravian missionary 
friends was on its way to Greenland. And from that 
beginning of friendship's missionary work to the present 
day the Moravians have transcended all other bodies of 
Christian believers in the missionary spirit and work. 

Early in this nineteenth century a pregnant movement 
in the direction of foreign missions from America, had its 
potent impelling in a warm college friendship. Samuel J. 
Mills, Jr., son of a Connecticut clergyman, was dedi- 
cated, from childhood, by his godly mother, to the work 
of Christian missions, — just then brought into new promi- 
nence by the labors and appeals of William Carey, the 
pioneer English missionary to India. A knowledge of 
that dedication impressed young Mills with a sense of 
the importance of the foreign missionary work ; but there 
was still needed the quickening force of a personal friend- 
ship to bring out of his impressions a purpose, a plan, and 
ultimate action. Mills entered Williams College in 1806. 
There he formed a close personal friendship with Gordon 
Hall and James Richards. After a time, in the intimacy 



228 Impelling Religious Movements. 

of this friendship, he told of the thought of his heart, and 
was cheered by a sympathetic response from his friends. 
From that time onward the three college friends talked 
much together over the possibilities of missionary work 
among the heathen ; and the idea gained and grew in 
hearts that were opened toward one another, and Christ- 
ward, in friendship. 

The geography of Asia came into the college studies 
of these friends. This turned the attention of Mills to 
Asia as a missionary field, and he waited his opportunity 
of laying it before his friends for their approval and co- 
operation. "At a stated prayer-meeting, held at hours 
when most students are engaged in sport or are doing 
nothing," says Dr. Mark Hopkins, " this idea [of evan- 
gelizing Asia] was presented [by young Mills], Driven 
by an approaching thunder-storm from the grove where 
the meeting had usually been held, they took shelter 
behind a neighboring haystack, and there — in the lan- 
guage of one who was present — ' Mills proposed to send 
the gospel to that dark and heathen land, and said we 
could do it if we would.' The subject was then dis- 
cussed, and as the storm was passing away Mills said, 
' Come, let us make it a subject of prayer, under this 
haystack, while the dark clouds are going and the clear 
sky is coming.' So they prayed, and continued to pray 
and consult together through that and the following 
season. Then a society was formed, the object of which 
was, in the language of its constitution, ' to effect in the 
person of its members a mission to the heathen.' This 
was the first foreign missionary society on this continent. 
A similar society was soon formed at Andover, by Mills 



Impelling Religious Movements. 229 

and those who went with him [to the Theological Semi- 
nary there], and from that the proposition was made that 
resulted in the formation of the American Board of Com- 
missioners for Foreign Missions." 

From this beginning there followed all the many de- 
nominational missionary societies in this country, which, 
together with the parent organization, have girdled the 
world with a belt of light. Young Mills was largely 
instrumental in securing the formation of the American 
Bible Society and of the American Colonization Society ; 
and other beneficent organizations followed these by the 
score, all having their germ, as it were, in the college 
friendship of Mills and Hall and Richards. Of these 
three friends, Mills went to Africa, Hall to India, and 
Richards to Ceylon. A marble monument marks the 
site of the haystack where their college friendship culmi- 
nated in that initial missionary society ; and wheresoever 
by the agency of any of these societies the gospel of 
Christ shall be preached in all the world, this result of 
their friendship should be told for a memorial of them. 

It were needless to continue the search along the cen- 
turies for proofs of the impelling power of friendship in 
great religious movements ; but illustrations in this line 
would disclose themselves wherever the search was pur- 
sued. In what are known as the Broad Church move- 
ment and the Anglo-Catholic movement, having their 
center in Oxford University during the second quarter 
of this century, personal friendships were a factor of un- 
mistakable importance. Back of these movements, the 
friendship of Coleridge and Wordsworth would have to 
be recognized as opening a new era in religious thought 



230 Impelling Religious Move7?tents. 

in England. Then there would come into prominence 
the friendships of such leaders or prompters as Whately, 
Arnold, Milman, Thirhvall, Julius Charles Hare, Bunsen, 
Maurice, Stanley, and Kingsley ; Rose, Keble, Newman, 
Hurrell Froude, and Pusey. It may, indeed, be too 
soon to say which of the friends in these groups severally 
were the pre-eminent leaders, and which of them had 
most impelling power in their lines of thought and feel- 
ing; but it is not too soon to say that their friendships as 
friendships were potent in giving direction and impetus 
to the great movements in which they bore a part. 

Because religion is the expression of man's profound- 
est nature, and friendship is the holiest out-going of the 
human heart, therefore a great religious movement is 
sure to have as its leader a man whom friendship inspires 
and impels. The head is never at its best unless swayed 
by the heart ; and the heart is never swayed so power- 
fully as when swayed by friendship. 




ADVANCING CIVIL LIBERTY. 




INITIAL movements in the direction of civil 
liberty have had their promptings in, or 
have gained fresh force from, strong per- 
sonal friendships. A reason for this is 
found in the fact that no sentiment is 
purer or stronger than that which impels a man to be 
unselfishly devoted to the highest interests held before 
him in the ideal of one who has his love and his rever- 
ence ; and that when this sentiment is superadded to a 
generous desire for the good of one's fellows, a man will 
do or die with his friend in behalf of the liberties of all. 

The Athenians ascribed their deliverance from regal 
tyranny to the joint endeavors of the two friends, Har- 
modius and Aristogiton. Hippias and Hipparchus, sons 
of Pisistratus, held tyrannically the chief power in Athens, 
in the sixth century before our era. Harmodius and 
Aristogiton, devoted friends, were young Athenian citi- 
zens. Harmodius being outraged by an insult to his 
sister, on his account, from the tyrant Hippias, turned to 

231 



232 Advancing Civil Liberty. 

his friend Aristogiton for sympathy and assistance. A 
wrong done to either of these friends was a wrong done 
to both, and both were aroused to a purpose of vengeance. 
On the occasion of the great feast of Panathenaea they 
slew Hipparchus, intending also to slay Hippias. Har- 
modius was instantly stricken down by the royal guards ; 
and Aristogiton was taken and executed. This trag- 
edy was a means of arousing the Athenians against the 
tyranny of the reigning dynasty, and Hippias was soon 
expelled from his country ; and it is said that he after- 
wards perished at Marathon, while treacherously acting 
as a guide to the Persians against his countrymen. " Har- 
modius and Aristogiton were afterwards," says the his- 
torian Grote, " commemorated as the winners and proto- 
types of Athenian liberty. Statues were erected in their 
honor, shortly after the final expulsion of the Pisistratides ; 
immunity from taxes and public burdens was granted to 
the descendants of their families ; and the [Athenian] 
speaker who proposed the abolition of such immunities, 
at a time when the number had been abusively multi- 
plied, made his only special exception in favor of this 
respected lineage." 

The bronze statues of these two friends, made by 
Antenor, and set up in the Agora of Athens, having been 
carried away by Xerxes, new ones by Critias were erected 
in their stead ; although the originals were afterwards 
sent back to Athens by Alexander. It was of the first- 
named statues that Antipho made mention when, in an- 
swer to the tyrant Dionysius's question which was the 
finest kind of brass, he replied, " That of which the statues 
of Harmodius and Aristogiton are formed." An ancient 



Advancing Civil Liberty. 233 

Greek song, ascribed to Alcasus, voices the sentiment 
of the Athenians concerning these liberty -loving and 
tyranny-hating friends, in the words : 

" Bright shall your fame be through the ages, 
Dearest Harmodius and Aristogiton ; 
For ye twain slew the lordly despot, 
And gave just laws again to Athens." 

It is true that historians are not agreed in wholly 
condemning the Athenian rulers whose overthrow was 
wrought by these friends, or in approving the spirit of 
these friends in their conspiracy against those rulers ; but 
the fact remains that it was a personal friendship which 
brought Harmodius and Aristogiton to conspire against 
the Pisistratides, and that the overthrow of the Pisistra- 
tides as a result of that conspiracy was the beginning of 
better days for the liberty of Athens. Indeed, if it were 
true, as some students of history would have us sup- 
pose, that the Pisistratides were " the persons who in 
good truth gave Athens her freedom, far more than Har- 
modius and Aristogiton," it is worthy of note that Pisis- 
tratus, the father of Hippias and Hipparchus, and the 
founder of the dynasty bearing his name, came into power 
originally, and won the Athenians to their renewed strug- 
gle with the Megarians, through his intimate personal 
friendship with Solon the Sage. So whether it were 
through the action of Harmodius and Aristogiton, or of 
Pisistratus and Solon, that the beginning of Athenian 
liberties was made, in either case it received its impulse 
from friendship. 

Legend and history intermingle in the early days of 
Rome, as of Greece ; and in both cases the story that 



234 Advancing Civil Liberty. 

gained currency and credence gives a foremost place to 
a personal friendship in bringing about the struggle that 
advanced the liberties of the commonwealth. Those were 
dark days for Rome, when Tarquin the Arrogant had 
trampled on the rights of both patricians and plebeians, 
and was ruthlessly swaying imperial power for the grati- 
fying of his personal ambitions and hatreds. Then it was 
that Tarquin's son Sextus blindly followed his lusts in 
the treacherous and cowardly outrage on Lucretia the 
wife of his kinsman Collatinus, madly confident that jus- 
tice could have no power over a son of Rome's ruler. 
And it seemed, at the time, as if Sextus might be right 
in his daring reliance on the wrong. But Tarquinius 
Collatinus had a friend, in his kinsman Lucius Junius 
Brutus, who had been feigning idiocy in order to save 
his life from the royal tyrant's hatred. To that friend 
Collatinus turned in his hour of need, and the two friends 
hasted together from the camp before Ardea, when the 
husband was summoned by his wife to hear the terrible 
story of her wrong, as she made ready to die by her own 
hand. It was the sympathy of friend with friend that 
made Brutus then rise up for the avenging of his friend's 
great wrong, by the overthrow of the tyrant ruler whose 
tyranny had made possible this wrong. And that out- 
come of friendship brought new liberty to Rome. 

Shakespeare, following the narrative of Livy, tells the 
story of that scene by the bedside of the dead Lucretia, 
when her husband and father vied with each other in 
their despairing grief; and that husband's friend aroused 
them both to vigorous action, and pledged them both to 
this oath of vengeance : 



Advancing Civil Liberty. 235 

" 'Now, by the Capitol that we adore, 
And by this chaste blood so unjustly stained, 
By heaven's fair sun, that breeds the fat earth's store, 
By all our country's rights in Rome maintained, 
And by chaste Lucrece' soul that late complained 
Her wrongs to us, and by this bloody knife, 
We will revenge the death of this true wife.' 

" This said, he struck his hand upon his breast, 
And kissed the fatal knife, to end his vow ; 
And to his protestation urged the rest, 
Who, wondering at him, did his words allow: 
Then jointly to the ground their knees they bow, 
And that deep vow, which Brutus made before, 
He doth again repeat, and that they swore. 

" When they had sworn to this advised doom, 
They did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence ; 
To show her bleeding body thorough Rome, 
And so to publish Tarquin's foul offence : 
Which being done with speedy diligence, 
The Romans plausibly did give consent 
To Tarquin's everlasting banishment." 

And on the ruins of the overthrown monarchy there 
arose the fabric of Rome's republic. Tarquinius Colla- 
tinus and Lucius Junius Brutus, the two friends who had 
brought about this change, were fittingly made the first 
consuls, or praetors, of the new government. When, 
finally, Brutus fell in a struggle with the deposed house 
of Tarquin, the matrons of Rome wore mourning for him 
for a twelvemonth ; a statue was erected in his honor ; and 
he was called the Avenger of Woman's Honor, because 
of what he had done with and for his friend, in the time 
of that friend's extremity. 

English history gives similar testimony to that of 



236 Advancing Civil Liberty. 

Greece and Rome, in exhibit of the power of friendship 
at the turning-point of conflicts for civil liberty. John 
Hampden stands out as a prominent leader in the earlier 
struggles for English constitutional liberty. By his wise 
and courageous firmness in resisting the aggressions of 
Charles I. on the rights of Parliament, and the king's 
arbitrary tax-levies on the people, Hampden "became 
the turning-point of the course of the history of England." 
And John Hampden was a leader and a reformer, as the 
close personal friend of Sir John Eliot, and of John Pym. 
It was what these three were to each other as friends, 
which enabled them to be what they were, as patriots, to 
the English nation. Hampden was not twenty-seven 
when he took his seat in the Parliament of 1621, "and 
became the friend of Eliot and of Pym ; " the former of 
whom was then twenty-eight, and the latter thirty-six. 
The intimacy of these friends became a shaping power in 
the career of each and all of them, and in turn a shaping 
power in the course of their country and of the world. 
" Eliot and Pym," says a recent historian, " formulated 
the grievances against absolutism, a contemplation of 
which led to the revolution that established Anglican 
liberty on its present basis." Of these two friends of 
Hampden, Hallam characterizes Eliot as " the most illus- 
trious confessor in the cause of liberty whom that time 
produced; " and Green affirms that "the earlier struggle 
for parliamentary liberty centers in the figure of Sir John 
Eliot." Forster, on the other hand, calls John Pym " the 
first great popular organizer in English politics." Clar- 
endon thinks that Pym was, for a time, " the most popu- 
lar man, and the most able to do hurt that hath lived 



Advancing Civil Liberty. 237 

at any time." And Green is sure that, when both Eliot 
and Hampden had fallen, Pym remained " the greatest, 
as he was the first, of parliamentary leaders ; " and that, 
when he was dead, his already formed plans for the future 
were carried out by Cromwell and his army. 

Yet, between Eliot the earlier leader, and Pym the later 
one, Hampden is conspicuous above both of his friends. 
" In the earlier days of his parliamentary career," says 
Gardiner, " he was content to be overshadowed by Eliot, 
as in his later days he was content to be overshadowed by 
Pym, and to be commanded by Essex. Yet it is Hamp- 
den, and not Eliot or Pym, who lives in the popular 
imagination as the central figure of the English revolu- 
tion in its earlier stages. It is Hampden whose statue, 
rather than that of Eliot or Pym, has been selected to 
take its place in St. Stephen's Hall, as the noblest type 
of the parliamentary opposition, as Falkland's has been 
selected as the noblest type of parliamentary royalists." 
Macaulay sums up the claims of Hampden to the place 
of pre-eminence in his day. He cites Richard Baxter as 
saying, that " Mr. John Hampden was one that friends 
and enemies acknowledged to be most eminent for pru- 
dence, piety, and peaceable counsels, having the most 
universal praise of any gentleman that I remember of that 
age." Macaulay also shows that when Eliot wrote, in his 
prison, a treatise on government, he submitted it to " his 
friend " Hampden, by whom it was kindly criticised and 
revised as by a master; that when, after Eliot's death, 
Pym and Hampden were leaders together in Parliament, 
" by the universal consent of friends and enemies, the first 
place belonged to Hampden;" that Hampden "alone had 



238 Advancing Civil Liberty. 

discovered [in ' his kinsman Oliver Cromwell, over whom 
he possessed great influence '], under an exterior appear- 
ance of coarseness and extravagance, those great and 
commanding talents which were afterwards the admira- 
tion and the dread of Europe ; " and finally, that " in 
Hampden, and in Hampden alone, were united all the 
qualities which, at such a crisis, were necessary to save 
the state ; — the valor and energy of Cromwell, the dis- 
cernment and eloquence of Vane, the humanity and 
moderation of Manchester, the stern integrity of Hale, 
the ardent public spirit of Sydney ; . . . the sobriety, the 
self-command, the perfect soundness of judgment, the 
perfect rectitude of intention, to which the history of 
revolutions furnishes no parallel, or furnishes a parallel 
in Washington alone." 

And this leader of leaders in that crisis-time of English 
history swayed and was swayed by his intimate friend- 
ships. It is not merely that Hampden was a close coun- 
selor with his chief co-workers, but that he was a friend, 
in affectionate personal relations, first with Eliot, after- 
wards with Pym, and for a time, meanwhile, with both. 
Macaulay points out, that while Eliot was writing from 
his prison, to give his views of government to Hampden, 
Hampden was caring, in tenderness, for the two sons 
of Eliot, as if they had been his own ; moreover, that, 
after the death of Eliot, Hampden " lived in habits of 
the closest intimacy," with Pym. Again, Green says of 
Hampden, at the opening of the second stage of the great 
governmental conflict : " He had been the bosom-friend 
of Eliot, till the victim of the king's resentment lay dead 
in the Tower. He was now the bosom-friend of Pym." 



Advancing Civil Liberty. 239 

And the influence of those two bosom-friendships has 
been a factor in the wisest movements for the promotion 
of true civil liberty in the last two centuries and a half; 
and all mankind has reason to thank God for them 
to-day. 

Among the historic conflicts for civil liberty, that of 
the American people stands out in a unique pre-eminence, 
not by its severity and magnitude as a conflict, but in its 
successful issue in the founding of a new nationality on 
the basis of principles of justice and equity that stand 
the test of time, winning and holding the admiration of the 
world. In its permanent results rather than its current 
contests, this struggle has its prime importance on the 
pages of human history ; and its central characters are 
those who did most for its ultimate success, apart from 
the measure of their share in its initiating. George 
Washington and Alexander Hamilton stand out all by 
themselves in their greatness, as chief actors in that strug- 
gle for liberty which culminated in the fully established 
government of the United States of America. Each of 
these men was more of a power in this struggle than any 
one else except the other ; and each of them was enabled 
to be what he was and to do what he did in this struggle, 
through his relations of friendship with the other. On 
this point the verdict of history is explicit, as every careful 
student will have reason to perceive. 

Lord Brougham characterizes Washington as " the 
greatest man of our own or any age." Earl Russell 
says : " To George Washington alone in modern times 
has it been given to accomplish a wonderful revolution, 
and yet to remain to all future times the theme of a peo- 



240 Advancing Civil Liberty. 

pie's gratitude and an example of virtuous and beneficent 
power." Mr. Gladstone's testimony is : " Washington, 
to my mind, is the purest figure in history." M. Guizot 
sums up Washington's life-work in the declaration : " He 
did the two greatest things which in politics man can 
have the privilege of attempting. He maintained by 
peace that independence of his country which he had 
acquired by war. ... Of all great men he was the most 
virtuous and the most fortunate. In this world God has 
no higher favors to bestow." And these utterances are 
the expression of the world's conviction concerning 
Washington. 

Of Alexander Hamilton, so acute and discerning an 
observer of his fellows as Prince Talleyrand said, accord- 
ing to the testimony of Mr. George Ticknor, "that he 
had known nearly all the marked men of his time, but 
he had never known one, on the whole, equal to him." 
Professor Francis Lieber quotes the historian Niebuhr 
as saying : " Alexander Hamilton was one of the most 
powerful minds of modern times. He had resources 
within him such as none of his contemporaries had." In 
the opinion of M. Guizot, " Hamilton must be classed 
among the men who have best known the vital principles 
and fundamental conditions of a government." Said 
Fisher Ames : " The name of Hamilton would have 
honored Greece in the age of Aristides." Justice Story 
said of him : " I have deemed him a giant among his 
contemporaries, of whom it might truly be said, ' Toto 
vertice supra est! " Looking back over the pages of 
history, Charles Francis Adams says of Hamilton : 
" Among all the remarkable men of the Revolution, we 



Advancing Civil Liberty, 241 

know of no one who, for the attributes which usually 
mark genius, was more distinguished." And the historian 
Hildreth, passing upon the death of Hamilton, pronounces 
it " a loss second only to that of Washington ; " adding, 
in a comparison of these two great men : " Hamilton 
possessed the same rare and lofty qualities, the same just 
balance of soul, with less, indeed, of Washington's severe 
simplicity and awe-inspiring presence, but with more of 
warmth, variety, ornament, and grace. If the Doric in 
architecture may be taken as the symbol of Washington's 
character, Hamilton's belonged to the same grand style 
as developed in the Corinthian — if less impressive, more 
winning." Of no other associate of Washington are such 
words spoken by such judges. 

And that it was the friendship of these two men which 
secured to their common country, and to the race, those 
blessings of a good government which they severally per- 
ceived and together worked for, is as patent as that each 
of them had no peer but the other, in the struggle in 
which they contended side by side, and that each was 
in a peculiar sense the other's complement and balance in 
the progress and issues of that struggle. Washington and 
Hamilton were fitted to be friends ; they were friends ; 
and they were mutually helpful, and potently useful, in 
and through their friendship. Hamilton was enough 
younger than Washington to have been his son. It was 
while Hamilton was yet in his teens that the attention 
of the new commander-in-chief of the army was called 
to his ability and efficiency as a young artillery officer, 
first by the veteran General Greene, and afterwards by 
personal observation. An interview with the young 

16 



242 Advancing Civil Liberty. 

officer seemed to win to him Washington's sincere regard ; 
for Hamilton was always remarkable for the measure of 
personal attachment that his words and ways secured to 
him. Washington speedily proffered him an appoint- 
ment on his staff. This was not an attractive position to 
Hamilton, as he preferred an independent command ; but 
as his biographer, John T. Morse, expresses it, " Hamilton 
entertained such sentiments of respect and affection for 
his chief, that he could not easily determine to refuse 
the request, preferred with no small degree of warmth 
and earnestness." Hence, when just turned of twenty, 
Hamilton was appointed a personal aide of Washington, 
with the rank of lieutenant-colonel ; Washington being 
then forty-five. 

The close personal relations thus formed between 
Washington and Hamilton became closer and closer. 
The spirit and ability of the young man won the con- 
fidence and admiration of his superior. Hamilton be- 
came the confidential secretary, as well as the favored 
aide, of the commander-in-chief. " His principal occu- 
pation was in the conduct: of Washington's immense cor- 
respondence," involving the treatment of questions of 
great importance, and of yet greater delicacy; and he 
was soon "the depositary of the most secret thoughts of 
his chief, and the organ of their promulgation.". Wash- 
ington deserves all credit for his pre-eminent part in 
directing and using this service so effectively ; and it was 
because he here loved and trusted one who was so worthy 
and so capable, that so few mistakes were made in this 
portion of his career. Henry Cabot Lodge sums up the 
case for Hamilton, when he says for him : " As his 



Advancing Civil Liberty. 243 

enthusiastic comrade, the gallant Laurens, said, he cer- 
tainly held the pen of Junius in the American army; and 
to that gifted pen, employed as freely in another's service 
as in his own, and to the versatile and original mind of 
its possessor, Washington owed much, and gave every 
proof that he appreciated the debt." 

j Again and again Hamilton was sent by Washington on 
some special mission of peculiar importance and delicacy; 
and his a6lion always justified the wisdom and the con- 
fidence that had selected him. Meanwhile his abounding 
and unfailing cheerfulness, in times of greatest general 
depression, was a source of stimulus and encouragement 
to the sore-pressed and sadly beset commander-in-chief. 
Moreover, young Hamilton was ever looking forward 
with the eye of a prophet, and with the spirit of a born 
leader, to the possibilities and needs of the future; and 
there can be little doubt that the conferences of Wash- 
ington and Hamilton, during this period of their early inti- 
macy, did much to shape the opinions and action of both 
in the subsequent days of the young Republic. Neither 
friend could have done what he did for his country, 
without the friendship and help of the other. | Judge 
Shea, writing in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia 
Britannica, says emphatically : " The first suggestion 
toward the establishment of an adequate and permanent 
government [for the American colonies] came, as it is 
now conceded, from Hamilton. It was contained in a 
letter written by him, September 3, 1780 [while he was 
still an aide of Washington], to James Duane, a delegate 
from New York to the Congress at Philadelphia." After 
mentioning a second letter written a few months later, by 



244 Advancing Civil Liberty. 

Hamilton, Judge Shea adds: "These letters are indeed 
the principia of the American government in its organi- 
zation and administration." 

If, indeed, the friendship of Washington and Hamilton 
had gone no farther than this, it would be evident that 
America owes much for all time to the suggestion's and 
incitements of that friendship. But, fortunately, it did not 
stop here. Washington loved Hamilton, perhaps more 
than Hamilton loved Washington; and Washington was 
faithful as a friend even when Hamilton was unduly 
sensitive to reproof, and resigned from the staff of the 
Commander-in-chief, after four years of important service 
there. Lafayette, writing to Hamilton of the estimate 
in which Washington held him, said : " I know the 
General's friendship and gratitude toward you, my dear 
Hamilton ; both are greater than you perhaps imagine." 
And Washington Irving, in narrating the circumstances 
of the retirement of Hamilton from the staff of Wash- 
ington, says of the latter's continued attachment to his 
over-sensitive young friend: "The friendship between 
these illustrious men was destined to survive the Revo- 
lution, and to signalize itself through many eventful 
years, and stands recorded in the correspondence [of 
Washington] almost at the last moment of his life." 

Hamilton remained in the army until after the sur- 
render of Cornwallis at Yorktown. Later, he studied law 
and entered on its practice in New York. He was elected 
to Congress from New York ; and again he was a delegate 
to the convention that framed the Constitution of the 
United States. Meanwhile, he was doing, by pen and 
voice, a work of preparation for the new government 



Advancing Civil Liberty. 245 

such as no one else could have done ; and in all his 
labors he was in pleasant relations and co-work with 
Washington. Guizot says of this period of Hamilton's 
labors : " There is not in the Constitution of the United 
States an element of order, of force, or of duration, which 
he has not powerfully contributed to introduce into it, 
and caused to predominate." And it is now admitted by 
statesmen of Europe as well as of America, that Hamil- 
ton's writings in elucidation of the principles of federal 
government stand at the head of authorities in that 
sphere. After a while, the Constitution of the United 
States was completed and confirmed, and the government 
under it was inaugurated with George Washington as 
its first president. Then, again, Washington called his 
friend Hamilton to his aid, and proved his wisdom in so 
doing. Nominally Hamilton was Secretary of the 
Treasury. In reality he was the organizer and inspirer 
of the new government. In his immediate sphere his 
work was marvelous. Daniel Webster says of him in 
this position : " He smote the rock of the national re- 
sources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. 
He touched the dead corpse of the Public Credit, and it 
sprang upon its feet. The fabled birth of Minerva from 
the brain of Jove was hardly more perfect than the 
financial system of the United States as it burst forth 
from the conception of Alexander Hamilton." 

In our foreign policy, as in our domestic, the views of 
Hamilton had such weight with Washington that it came 
to be a charge against the President, that he was unduly 
swayed by the opinions of his friend, the Secretary of 
the Treasury. More than once it was specifically asserted, 



246 Advancing Civil Liberty. 

by the critics of the first Administration, that " the fame 
of Washington was more indebted to Mr. Hamilton than 
to any intrinsic merit of his own." Thomas Jefferson, 
the Secretary of State, after vainly opposing Hamilton in 
the councils of the Cabinet, resigned his position, rather 
than remain a subordinate figure in it. And the admin- 
istration of George Washington was so largely a success, 
in the troublous times of its beginning, because Wash- 
ington was what he was, and Hamilton was what he was, 
and Washington and Hamilton were friends. J Henry 
Cabot Lodge, as a biographer of Washington, empha- 
sizes the fac~t that the Cabinet relations of Hamilton with 
the President were those of friendship quite as surely as 
of politics. "Washington was not much given to pro- 
fessions of friendship," he says. " But it is a mistake to 
suppose that ... he was . . . without friends. In war 
and politics . . . the two men who were nearest to him 
were Hamilton and Knox, and his diary shows that when 
he was President he consulted with them nearly every 
day, apart from the regular Cabinet meetings. They were 
the two advisers who were friends as well as secretaries, 
and who followed and sustained him as a matter of 
affecliion as much as politics." 

As to the relative importance to the country of these 
two friendships, there is no room for serious question. It 
was not until Hamilton felt that Washington could spare 
him from the Cabinet that he also retired from that posi- 
tion ; and even then he was ever ready at the call of his 
friend for any special service, and he had frequent occa- 
sion to respond accordingly. " Continually did Washing- 
ton consult him, and cause the secretaries to consult him 



Advancing Civil Liberty. 247 

in all matters of difficulty," says Hamilton's biographer, 
Morse; [referring to the period after Hamilton's retiring 
from the Cabinet: "Whenever he was hard pushed for 
advice or assistance, he turned to Hamilton as to a friend 
in whose ability and kindliness he could fully trust; and 
never did Hamilton hesitate to put aside his own private 
affairs and devote his time to the service of Washington." 
When at last Washington decided to retire permanently 
from public life, he sought the assistance of Hamilton in 
the preparation of his Farewell Address; and that im- 
mortal paper has greater force and greater finish from the 
work done upon it by Alexander Hamilton. The new 
government was now in good working order, and the long 
struggle for its establishment in which these two friends 
had battled and endured side by side was practically at 
an end. Two years after this, however, the prospect of 
a war with France led to the formation of a provisional 
army with Washington at its head as lieutenant-general; 
and in accepting this appointment Washington nominated 
his friend Hamilton as first on the list of major-generals. 
President Adams preferred to give this position to Gen- 
eral Knox, who had been the senior of Hamilton in 
Revolutionary service; but Washington pivoted his own 
continuance in office on the appointment of Hamilton, 
who was kept at the head of the list accordingly. This 
was the close of Washington's public career. ] It was but 
a brief season before he lay down to die, leaving as a 
precious legacy to his country and to the world the 
memory, the influence, and the practical results of his 
friendship and cowork, for more than twenty-two years, 
with Alexander Hamilton. 



248 Advancing Civil Liberty. 

Whether or not the French Revolution be deemed a suc- 
cess as a movement in the direction of civil liberty, there 
can be no question that it was a terrible struggle in that 
direction; hence it is a movement to be looked at as 
illustrative of the sway of friendship in the sphere of such 
a struggle. " It was not only a period of destruction, but 
a period of construction," says one of its latest historians. 
" Nearly every expedient, whether socialistic or purely 
democratic, which has been proposed, of recent years, for 
benefiting the condition of the people, was tried between 
1789 and 1799; and, if history has any value at all, it is 
this period, which ought to be examined before any 
other" — for lessons in the realm of civil liberty. A 
personal friendship which was a power in the French 
Revolution was the friendship of Camille Desmoulins 
with Georges Jacques Danton. One of these friends was 
the beginner of that revolution, the other was for a time 
its central figure. Together the two friends were leaders 
and shapers of the best thought and purposes of its 
stormiest periods ; and the death of the two friends, side 
by side, on the guillotine, was the end of its brightest 
hope as a movement for human welfare. 

On the 1 2th of July, 1789, young Camille sprang upon 
a table at one of the cafes of the Palais Royal, and 
announced to the listening crowd of restless idlers the 
dismissal by the king of M. Necker as prime minister, 
calling that act " the tocsin of the St. Bartholomew of the 
patriots," and sounding the cry, " To arms ! To arms!" 
It is admitted that "this scene was the beginning of the 
actual events of the Revolution." Two days later the 
Bastile was stormed, and the era of violence was fairly 



Advancing Civil Liberty. 249 

open. Camille was the pamphleteer, the editor, the 
popular voicer of the period. There was reason in the 
recognition of him as the "Attorney-General of the Lamp- 
post;" yet he was more than a mere inciter to vigorous 
action; he was a thinker with a purpose in his thinking. 
Lord Brougham says of him : " The merit of Camille rises 
very much above any literary fame which writers can 
earn, or the public voice can bestow. He appears ever 
[after the Revolution had begun] to have been a friend 
to milder measures than suited the tastes of the times." 
And it has been said that his latest work, in the Vieux 
Cordelier \ was "the noblest expression of revolutionary 
thought." At the beginning of his revolutionary career, 
Camille was the friend of Robespierre, who had been his 
fellow-student at the College of Louis the Grand in Paris; 
and the two friends were workers together in the Jacobin 
Club. But Camille was more of a man, a truer man, 
with nobler instincts, than Robespierre; and it was not 
long before Camille formed a worthier friendship with 
Danton; and from the beginning of their acquaintance 
until their death together, Camille and Danton were de- 
voted friends. " If any man," says Brougham, " can 
more than another be termed the author of the French 
Revolution, it is Danton ; " and Guizot suggests that 
"the indomitable, inexhaustible genius of the Revolution 
resided in that unequal nature " of his. Danton was 
alike admired by the populace and feared by the strong 
thinkers of his day. He was called " the Mirabeau of 
the sans cidottes" a "Titan," and "Jove the Thunderer." 
And Danton has been rightly called the "inspirer" of 
Camille. 



250 Advancing Civil Liberty. 

When Danton was made Minister of Justice, Camille 
was made his secretary-general. Thenceforward the two 
friends were as one, in their thinking and doing. To- 
gether they voted in the Assembly for the death of the 
king. When Danton was at the head of the Triumvirate 
in the Reign of Terror, Camille was his mouthpiece and 
advocate in all efforts at shaping public sentiment or 
directing public thought. When Robespierre would be 
rid of Danton he must be rid of Camille as well ; for the 
two were one, and either was the other. So it was that 
they were sent together to the scaffold, on April 5, 1794, 
to die together as friends ; and that " with them died also 
the hope of the Revolution." Nor was it merely a co- 
incidence that these two men were in political affiliation 
in their revolutionary career. They were friends to the 
last. Guizot records that when they went to execution 
Danton "wished to embrace Camille Desmoulins at the 
foot of the scaffold, but the executioner separated them. 
'Wretch,' said he, 'you will not hinder our heads from 
kissing in the basket presently.' " 

These representative illustrations from the course of 
Greek and Roman and English and French and Ameri- 
can peoples, in their contests for liberty, are sufficient to 
indicate the prevailing power of this sentiment in this 
field of human endeavor. Added research would supply 
added proof in the same direction. 





AFFECTING PHILOSOPHIC THOUGHT. 




[T might, at first thought, seem that calm 
philosophy would be less likely than any 
form of practical action to exhibit the 
influence of personal friendship; but when 
we consider that philosophy is human 
thinking concerning the relations of things, we can see 
that the spirit of the individual thinker will naturally 
affect the manner of his thinking ; and that, therefore, 
philosophers are liable to feel the sway, in all their rea- 
sonings, of the most potent of human sentiments. As a 
matter of fact it is found that philosophies, ancient and 
modern, have given large prominence to the element of 
friendship; and that the authors of those philosophies 
have been peculiarly open to its immediate influence. 

Tradition assigns to the Greek Pythagoras, in the sixth 
century before our era, the claim of being the first to call 
himself a philosopher, or "lover of wisdom." We know 
but little of the personal history, or even of the specific 
teachings, of Pythagoras; but the numerous stories con- 

251 



252 AffeEling Philosophic Thought. 

cerning his influence over his contemporaries go to show 
that he was a man who loved and was loved. And the 
one saying of his that has been preserved to us in classic 
records, is his reference to "a friend " as "the half of one's 
soul." Out of the choicest of his followers, Pythagoras 
is said to have formed a select brotherhood, or society of 
friends whom he drew close to himself in the privileges 
of confidence and affection ; and within this sacred circle 
of sworn friends there were inner circles, one within 
another, until the innermost was reached by those nearest 
and dearest to himself. 

In the brief writings ascribed to Pythagoras, under the 
name of "Golden Words," probably composed by one 
of his disciples as embodying the great master's more 
important teachings, there is an appeal to all to choose 
wisely in friendship; and this appeal immediately follows 
the injunction to duties that look God-ward, as if friend- 
ship were the highest duty in purely human relations. 
And a modern historian of classic times, summing up the 
influences of Pythagorean philosophy, says : "As regards 
the fruits of this system of training or belief, it is inter- 
esting to remark, that wherever w T e have notices of dis- 
tinguished Pythagoreans, we usually hear of them as men 
of great uprightness, conscientiousness, and self-restraint, 
and as capable of devoted and enduring friendship." Da- 
mon and Pythias were representative Pythagoreans, and 
their undying friendship seems to have been in the line 
of the teachings of this first of the Greek philosophers. 

Confucius was a contemporary of Pythagoras, in that 
wonderful sixth century before our era. While his 
philosophy was mainly limited to the principles that 



Affec~iing Philosophic Thought. 253 

should govern men in their development of personal 
character, and in their purely social relations, it had in it 
enough that was of permanent value to make its impress 
on, and to hold its power over, one-third of the human 
race for now twenty -four centuries; and friendship was 
a permanent element in the philosophy of Confucius. 
It is said that when Tze-kung once asked the sage "if 
there were any one word which would serve as a rule 
of practice for all one's life," Confucius replied " Yes," and 
then named the word, or composite character, shu, mean- 
ing literally "as heart." This he explained by showing 
that we were to look out upon others in that sympathy 
with them, and that regard for them, which our hearts 
would prompt us to have for ourselves. An unselfish 
affection, which is the very essence of friendship, Con- 
fucius made the active principle of his system of social 
ethics. The more ancient Chinese classics which were 
studied by Confucius, made the cultivation of friendship 
a means of spiritual attainment; and the most eminent 
followers of Confucius named friendship as the first of 
social relations. Throughout the writings of Confucius 
the influence on himself of his personal friendships is 
plainly disclosed ; and he explicitly declared that his 
ideal in that direction was beyond his attainment. 

After Pythagoras there came Socrates and Plato as new 
beginners in the realm of speculative philosophy, whose 
influence has been on all the ages since ; and in the lives 
and teachings of both these philosophers friendship bore 
an important part. Socrates was dependent, from the 
beginning, on the help of a devoted friend in securing the 
possibility and means of the best intellectual training that 



254 A ff effing Philosophic Thought. 

Athens could then afford. Socrates was the son of a 
sculptor, and he was trained to his father's art as a means 
of support. But Crito of Athens, a young friend of Soc- 
rates, had large wealth, and he supplied both books and 
teachers for his friend, so that he could become a student 
of philosophy; and then he studied with him and under 
him, while remaining true as his friend. This friendship 
of Crito for Socrates was unbroken to the last. When 
Socrates was condemned to death, Crito was one of his 
bondsmen, and he sought the privilege of securing his 
escape by the use of his large wealth. When Socrates 
refused to avail himself of this proffer, Crito remained 
with him in affectionate converse during the last hours 
of the philosopher's life ; and finally he who had helped 
to open the eyes of Socrates to the light of truth, lov- 
ingly closed those eyes to the light of earth. The influ- 
ence of this friendship of Crito is seen in all the thought 
of Socrates. Its value in his eyes is indicated when he 
declares to Lysis : " I have a passion for friends. . . . 
Yea, by the dog of Egypt, I should greatly prefer a real 
friend to all the gold of Darius, or even to Darius him- 
self. I am such a lover of friends as that." And he 
discloses his understanding of the scope of his friend's 
friendship for him, when he says to Menexenus and 
Lysis, of their relative wealth : " Friends have all things 
in common ; so that one of you can be no richer than 
the other, if you say truly that you are friends." And 
in all the searchings of the great philosopher after truth 
absolute, hardly any question has larger prominence than 
the nature and possibilities of friendship. 

Plato, like Socrates, was largely indebted to friendship, 



Affecting Philosophic Thought. 255 

and largely influenced by it. Among the stories that 
gained credence concerning Plato's life-course is one, 
deemed probable by Grote and Ueberweg and Erdmann, 
that tells of his visit to Syracuse with his friend Dion, 
and of the bearing of this journey on all his future. Of- 
fending the tyrant Dionysius by his plain speaking, Plato 
was sold as a slave by the tyrant's order; and his mission 
as a philosopher would have ended abruptly had it not 
been for the interference of his friend Anniceris, the 
Cyrenian, who gave of his wealth to ransom his friend. 
And, as the story goes, when, subsequently, other friends 
of Plato would have refunded to Anniceris his outlay on 
this account, Anniceris refused to accept the payment, 
and the money raised for his reimbursement was devoted 
to the purchase of grounds for the Academy at Athens. 
So it came to pass, according to this story, that this 
world-center of philosophic teaching was itself a monu- 
ment and memorial of a personal friendship. Certain it 
is that unselfish friendship had such prominence in the 
mind of Plato, as a main factor in his philosophy, that it 
has been characterized, in all the ages since, as " Platonic 
love ; " a love that is noblest and purest and most God- 
like among human sentiments. To separate friendship 
from the teachings of Plato would be to destroy the 
integrity and life of Platonism. 

But in addition to all that we know of the influence of 
personal friendship on Socrates and Plato individually, 
we find that the friendship of Plato and Socrates was the 
main cause of the power of each and both in the world's 
philosophy. What should we have known of Socrates 
as a philosopher, had not Plato been his friend ? What 



256 Affefling Philosophic Thought. 

would Plato have done without that material which he 
gathered for use through his friendship with Socrates ? 
Emerson brings out this truth when he says : " Socrates 
and Plato are the double star, which the most powerful 
instruments will not entirely separate. ... It was a rare 
fortune that this yEsop of the mob and this robed scholar 
should meet, to make each other immortal in their 
mutual faculty. The strange synthesis in the character 
of Socrates capped the synthesis in the mind of Plato. 
Moreover, by this means he was able, in the direct way, 
and without envy, to avail himself of the wit and weight 
of Socrates, to which unquestionably his own debt was 
great ; and these derived their principal advantage from 
the perfect art of Plato." The fountain of philosophy 
at Athens sent out its waters of truth into all the world 
through its twin streams of Socratic and Platonic wis- 
dom, gaining their force and flow in the friendship of 
those great teachers, who had learned from the friend- 
ship of others how to be friends to each other. 

Greater even than Socrates or Plato in intellectual 
power, and more influential in the realm of systematic 
philosophy, stands Aristotle, the greater pupil of the great 
master of the Academy ; and in the life and thought of 
Aristotle, friendship is again an important factor. While 
yet a lad, Aristotle was an attached friend of the young 
prince who subsequently became Philip of Macedon ; 
Aristotle's father being the favorite physician of Philip's 
father, king Amyntas II. This friendship had its shaping 
influence on the career of Aristotle. After the early death 
of his father and mother, young Aristotle was cared for 
and educated by Proxenus of Atarneus in Mysia, a de- 



Affecting Philosophic Thought. 257 

voted friend of his father ; and it was as a result of this 
legacy of friendship that Aristotle came to be a pupil, 
and so to become a friend, of Plato at Athens. Still later 
Aristotle won the friendship of Hermias, dynast of Atar- 
neus, the home of his father's friend; and this friend- 
ship was a life treasure to him. By means of it he was 
aided in his studies and prompted in his thinking. And 
when Hermias was killed by the Persians, Aristotle gave 
expression to his ardent love for him in a poem that has 
survived until the present ; and he caused a statue to be 
erected to his memory at Delphi. His love for Hermias, 
Aristotle seems to have transferred to the adoptive daugh- 
ter of his friend, whom he had married ; and he appeared 
to love her with the love of friendship in addition to con- 
jugal love. Long years after her death he directed by his 
will that her ashes should be placed by his own in his 
tomb. Because of Philip's friendship for Aristotle he com- 
mitted to his care the instruction of his son Alexander, 
and Alexander became the friend as well as the pupil of 
the philosopher. It was by the princely aid of Alexander 
that Aristotle was enabled to pursue his investigations 
in the realm of nature to an unparalleled extent, and to 
gather his wonderful collection of specimens for purposes 
of comparative study. Friendship is a theme of themes 
in the teachings of Aristotle ; and in the world's liter- 
ature, to-day, there is hardly a truer exhibit of the nature 
and scope of friendship than in his essay on that tran- 
scendent virtue. Nor can any one doubt that Aristotle 
made so much of friendship because friendship was so 
much to Aristotle. 

After the days of Socrates and Plato there came a sharp 

17 



258 Affecting Philosophic Thought. 

division in Greek philosophy, separating the Epicureans 
from the Stoics ; and it is a noteworthy fact that, widely 
as these two schools of thinking differed in other respects, 
they were agreed in recognizing the surpassing impor- 
tance of friendship. The Stoics held that the supreme 
end of life, or the highest good, is virtue ; while the Epi- 
cureans held that the highest good is defined as happi- 
ness, or enjoyment. But both were agreed that friend- 
ship was desirable ; the one school claiming that its 
cultivation was a duty, and the other that it was in itself 
a good. Zeno, the chief of the Stoics, taught that man 
exists for society rather than for himself; hence that 
unselfish friendship is the truest exhibit of personal vir- 
tue. Epicurus, on the other hand, taught that a man 
ought to seek personal advantage and enjoyment by 
every means in his power ; and, holding this view of life, 
he is reported by Cicero as claiming " that, of all things 
which philosophy brings together for the happy life, noth- 
ing is greater than friendship, nothing more enriching, 
nothing more delightful." Diogenes Laertius says that 
Epicurus " had so many friends that even whole cities 
could not contain them." Among the closest and most 
influential friends of Epicurus stood the poet Menander. 
Alike in the realm of abstract truth and in the realm of 
practical utility, friendship had a foremost place in the 
philosophies of ancient Greece — and beyond. 

As with ancient philosophy, so with modern, friend- 
ship has been a potent factor in its shaping and outbring- 
ing. It were needless to follow down the centuries for 
detailed proof of this proposition at every period ; but 
it suffices to pass from the beginnings of ancient specula- 



Affecling Philosophic Thought. 259 



tive philosophy to the beginnings of the more modern 
thinking in this realm. " Modern philosophy rigorously 
defined," says Lewes, " commences with Bacon and 
Descartes;" and although eighteen centuries intervened 
between their Greek prototypes and these founders of 
new schools of systematic speculation, human nature is 
found much the same in these later days as in the earlier, 
and friendship is as influential now as then. 

Francis Bacon is known as " the Father of Experi- 
mental Philosophy." He first brought into due promi- 
nence in the world's thinking the place and method 
of inductive reasoning as a basis of philosophic study. 
And the record of Bacon's life-course shows that he 
owed much to friendship for the opportunities of investi- 
gation in the line of his special researches, and for the 
quickening of his thought in the materials gathered by 
him. Left in a dependent state, by the death of his 
father, while only eighteen years old, with the disadvan- 
tage of expensive tastes in a prominent social position, 
and without the means of maintaining himself creditably 
in such a sphere, Bacon had need of help in order to pur- 
sue the studies for which his genius and inclinations pre- 
eminently fitted him. In this emergency Bacon was 
befriended by the warm-hearted, generous, and brilliant 
young Earl of Essex, who was a few years his junior, 
and who became devotedly attached to him. With all 
the faults of this unfortunate peer there was a noble 
side to his nature, and that side was always turned 
toward Bacon. Dean Church says of Essex, appreci- 
atively : " He began life with great gifts and noble ends; 
he was a serious, modest, and large-minded student both 



260 Affecting Philosophic Thought. 

of books and things, and he turned his studies to full 
account. He had imagination and love of enterprise, 
which gave him an insight into Bacon's ideas such as 
none of Bacon's contemporaries had." Of the relations 
of Essex with Bacon, Church adds : " Their friendship 
came to be one of the closest kind, full of mutual services 
and of genuine affection on both sides. It was not the 
relation of a great patron and useful dependant ; it was, 
as might be expected in the two men, that of affectionate 
equality. Each man was equally capable of seeing what 
the other was, and he saw it." 

Essex knew how to be a friend, better than Bacon did. 
He was watchful of the interests of Bacon, and ever ready 
to promote them, in public or in private, at any cost or 
risk to himself. When Bacon sought the office of At- 
torney-General, Essex made Bacon's cause his own, 
regardless of the enmities provoked thereby. " Reso- 
lutely, against all the world, I stand for your cousin 
Francis Bacon," he said to Sir Robert Cecil, when to 
announce that determination was to set himself in opposi- 
tion to one high in royal favor. And when Sir Robert 
would fain turn him from his purpose by suggesting that 
a proposal for another appointment for his friend would 
''be of easier digestion to the Queen," Essex responded 
with unabated vigor : " Digest me no digestions. The 
attorneyship for Francis is that I must have; and in 
that I will spend all my power, might, authority, and 
amity, and with tooth and nail procure the same for him 
against whomsoever; and whosoever getteth this office 
out of my hands for any other, before he have it, it shall 
cost him the coming by." The sturdy efforts of Essex in 



Affecting Philosophic Thought. 261 

behalf of Bacon in this instance, as again in a later effort 
to obtain for him the place proposed by Sir Robert, were 
unsuccessful ; and Essex felt the disappointment hardly 
less keenly than Bacon. But his ministry of friendship 
did not end here. Finding that he could not secure for 
his friend a public appointment that was fittingly remu- 
nerative, Essex presented to Bacon a personal estate near 
Twickenham, worth nearly two thousand pounds, — a much 
larger sum for that day than for now; and this gift was 
made, as Bacon afterwards confessed, "with so kind and 
noble circumstances, as the manner was worth more than 
the matter." Then and thus it was that Bacon first ob- 
tained the means of leisurely study, and was enabled to 
begin the preparation and publication of those writings 
which have linked his name with immortality. Their be- 
ginning was an outgrowth and a memorial of friendship, 
and friendship was a theme of prominence in their pages. 
Again and again, after this, Essex exerted himself in 
behalf of Bacon's welfare; and Bacon was the gainer by 
his friendship. But there came a time when Bacon found 
that he must choose between self and friendship, when to 
be true as a friend to Essex would cost him his position 
and his prospects, and he chose selfishly, with all its 
consequences to his character as well as his reputation. 
" The lamentable truth must be told," says Macaulay. 
" This friend so loved, so trusted, bore a principal part 
in ruining the Earl's fortune, in shedding his blood, and 
in blackening his memory." In spite of all that has been 
done to explain away or excuse the conduct of Bacon 
toward Essex, by such admiring biographers as Mon- 
tagu, Spedding, and Aldis Wright, the fact remains, as 



262 Affe fling Philosophic Thought, 

shown by Dean Church, that Bacon "was willing to be 
employed to hunt to death a friend like Essex, guilty, 
deeply guilty to the state, but to Bacon the most loving 
and generous of benefactors." This latest conscientious 
and fair-minded biographer of Bacon sums up the case 
as it stands, when he says: "The question was not 
whether Essex was guilty. The question for Bacon was, 
whether it was becoming to him, having been what he 
had been to Essex, to take a leading part in proceedings 
which were to end in his ruin and death. . . . Bacon had 
his public duty; his public duty may have compelled 
him to stand apart from Essex. But it was his interest, 
it was no part of his public duty, which required him to 
accept the task of accuser of his friend, and in his friend's 
direst need calmly to drive home a well-directed stroke 
that should extinguish chances and hopes, and make his 
ruin certain. No one who reads his anxious letters about 
preferment and the Queen's favor, about his disappointed 
hopes, about his straitened means and distress for money, 
. . . can doubt that the question was between his own 
prospects and his friend ; and that to his own interest he 
sacrificed his friend and his honor." 

It was through his winning a friend that Bacon gained 
a start in his life-work. It was through his failing as a 
friend that his character began to fail him, and that he 
was on the way to his final downfall. It is in the varying 
phases of that character that made friends for him, and 
that made him untrue as a friend, that Bacon appears 
in history so great in his glory and in his shame. But 
Essex was not the only friend who aided Bacon in 
his philosophic studies, and who had a shaping influ- 



A ff effing Philosophic Thought. 263 

ence upon his work for the world. Bishop Lancelot 
Andrewes was Bacon's close friend and counselor, from 
his young manhood to his life's close. Bacon called him 
his "Inquisitor -General," as he was accustomed to ex- 
amine and criticise inquiringly whatever Bacon proposed 
to lay before the public. Saintly George Herbert was 
warmly attached to Bacon, and gave him no little help in 
his studies. Yet closer than any other in helpful friend- 
ship was Toby Matthew, a son of the Archbishop of York, 
who had seen much of learned men in Italy, and whose 
judgment and fidelity were highly valued by Bacon. It 
is even said that all of the translating of Bacon's works 
into elegant Latin was done by his personal friends, as 
much of it is known to have been. Thus it is that he 
refers to one of these translations as made "by the help 
of some good pens which forsake me not." 

Of the gain which the keenest mind can acquire only 
through the intercourse of such friendship as he enjoyed, 
Bacon says felicitously: "Friendship maketh indeed a fair 
day in the affections, from storm and tempests: but it 
maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness 
and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be under- 
stood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth 
from his friend ; but before you come to that, certain it 
is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many 
thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and 
break up, in the communicating and discoursing with 
another : he tosseth his thoughts more easily ; he mar- 
shalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when 
they are turned into words ; finally he waxeth wiser than 
himself; and that more by an hour's discourse than by a 



264 Aff effing Philosophic Thought. 

day's meditation." And as if he were epitomizing his 
own experience in the intellectual as in the political world, 
Bacon says of the best man's effort to play his part in life's 
drama, " If he have not a friend, he may quit the stage." 

Descartes was nearly a contemporary of Bacon, but 
his influence as a philosopher was far greater, both in 
his own day and later. He was the pioneer, in the 
realm of modern analytic or deductive philosophy, even 
more surely than was the other, in the realm of modern 
empirical, or inductive, philosophy. " There have been 
disputes," says Lewes, "as to Bacon's claim to the title 
of Father of Experimental Science; but no one disputes 
the claim of Descartes to the title of Father of Modern 
Philosophy." Comparing Descartes with Bacon in point 
of influence on his times, Hallam says positively: "He 
worked a more important change in speculative philoso- 
phy, than any who had preceded him since the revival 
of learning; for there could be no comparison in that age 
between the celebrity and effect: of his writings and those 
of Lord Bacon." The friend who did most to affect and 
develop the philosophic thinking of Descartes, was Marin 
Mersenne, whom he met as a fellow-student at the Jesuit 
school of La Fleche, at Anjou, and who continued his 
devoted friend for nearly forty years. Mersenne was some 
eight years the senior of Descartes, and was already deeply 
interested in both mathematics and philosophy when he 
made the friendship of the young student, not yet more 
than twelve or fourteen years old, through whom he was 
destined to do his best work in the world. In addition 
to what has been called the psychological side of Des- 
cartes' philosophy, having its starting point in his famous 



Affecting Philosophic Thought, 265 

epigram "Cogito, ergo sum" — "I think, therefore I am," — 
the mathematical, or deductive, side of that philosophy 
was what gave it pre-eminent force among men; and 
that this combination of methods was largely due to the 
personal influence of Mersenne, with his peculiar tastes 
and acquirements, will hardly admit of a doubt. 

Neither Mersenne nor Descartes ever married. The 
one entered the priesthood, and the other was for a time 
a soldier; but they continued in correspondence while 
separated by distance, and they were much together, at 
other times, in mutual studies. In Paris, soon after his 
leaving La Fleche, Descartes was engaged in close 
mathematical study with Mersenne, and with a still more 
eminent mathematician, Claude Mydorge. A little later, 
while Descartes was in winter quarters, at Neuburg, as 
a soldier in the Bavarian service, the foundations of his 
system of philosophy came before his mind as by a reve- 
lation. He did not, however, pursue his studies with- 
out intermission, in the line of his new thinking; for he 
was again in Paris, six years after his Neuburg revela- 
tion, "and, in company with his friends Mersenne and 
Mydorge, was deeply interested in the theory of the 
refraction of light, and in the practical work of grinding 
glasses of the best shape suitable for optical instruments." 
It was when he was about thirty -two years of age that 
Descartes, at the request of Cardinal de Berulle, decided 
to devote himself to philosophic studies, and removed to 
Holland for this purpose, leaving all his financial affairs 
in France to the care of the Abbe Picot, and making his 
friend Pere Mersenne "his literary and scientific repre- 
sentative." For twenty years Descartes remained at his 



266 Affecting Philosophic Thought. 

studies in Holland, visiting France on only three occa- 
sions meanwhile. During all that time his work was 
going on with the help of his friend Mersenne. Des- 
cartes would state his views and his difficulties to Mer- 
senne; and Mersenne would raise objections in the one 
case, and suggest solutions in the other. Descartes 
would ask for fresh investigations in one line or another; 
and Mersenne would pursue the desired researches and 
report on them. Each fresh work, in its issue, was for- 
warded by Descartes to Mersenne; and the latter secured 
criticisms upon it from other scholars, and forwarded 
them, with his own, to his friend. By this means each 
successive edition of the works of Descartes was in sub- 
stantial advance on that which had before appeared. 

Other friendships than those of Mersenne and Mydorge 
had their influence on the studies of Descartes. His 
warm friendship with Guez de Balzac had its effect on his 
style of thought and expression. His friendship with the 
Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Frederick V., Elector 
Palatine, was, as Professor Mahaffy says, "one of the 
most sincere and affectionate he ever formed;" and his 
extended correspondence with her included a close dis- 
cussion of the metaphysical and mathematical phases 
of his system, and of the elements of other philosophies. 
After the death of Mersenne and Mydorge, Descartes 
came into relations of friendship, first with Claude Cler- 
selier, the French translator of one of his important 
works, and then with Pierre Chanut, the French ambas- 
sador at the court of Sweden. Through his friend 
Chanut, Descartes became known to Queen Christina 
of Sweden, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus; and she 



Affecting Philosophic Thought. 267 

entered into a correspondence with him on the nature of 
love and friendship. After a while the Queen became 
desirous of having Descartes take up his residence at 
Stockholm ; and she even sent an admiral to wait on him, 
with the proffer of his ship to bring him to her shores. 
Accepting the royal invitation, with certain important 
conditions, Descartes made his home with his friend 
Chanut at the Swedish capital. Queen Christina not 
only desired the counsel of Descartes for her personal 
guidance in study, but she wished him to aid her in 
founding a learned Academy, while she urged him to 
undertake the work of editing a completed edition of his 
papers. Hardly, however, had he entered upon these 
new duties, when Chanut was taken dangerously ill with 
inflammation of the lungs; and, through devotion to him 
in his illness, Descartes was stricken down with the same 
disease, and died, while Chanut recovered. 

From his earliest life to its close, Descartes was helped 
upward and onward, in his thinking and in his doing, by 
friendship. Great as he was, he could never have done 
all he did for the world, without the inspiration and aid 
of the friends he had. And who can doubt that one 
reason why Descartes so transcended Bacon in the influ- 
ence of his life work, as a man and as a philosopher, is 
to be found in the fa6l that he had the character that 
enabled him to be a friend so truly, as well as the at- 
tractiveness and ability that won to him and held the 
friendship of others ? 

Next after Descartes, as a pioneer thinker in the realm 
of speculative philosophy, stands John Locke. John 
Stuart Mill calls Locke " the unquestioned founder of 



268 Aff effing Philosophic Thought. 

analytic philosophy of mind." And one of his recent 
biographers says of his place among modern thinkers: 
"To trace Locke's influence on subsequent speculation 
would be to write the history of philosophy from his 
time to our own. In England, France, and Germany, 
there have been few writers on strictly philosophic 
questions, in this century or the last, who have not 
either quoted Locke's 'Essay' [Concerning Human Un- 
derstanding] with approbation, or at least paid him 
the homage of stating their grounds for dissenting from 
it. In the last centuiy, his other works, especially those 
on Government and Toleration, may be said to have 
almost formed the recognized code of liberal opinion in 
this country, besides exercising a considerable influence 
on the rapidly developing speculations which, in the 
middle of the century, were preparing no less than a 
social revolution in France." And John Locke, power 
as he proved to be in the world's forces, may almost be 
called the creature of friendship ; as he was unmistakably 
an illustration of its helpfulness in the realm of philo- 
sophic thought. 

Before Locke had begun his philosophical writings, and 
while he was pursuing medical studies at Oxford, he had 
occasion to deliver a message of regret, or apology, from 
a physician with whom he was connected, to Lord Ashley, 
afterwards the Earl of Shaftesbury, who had come to 
Oxford to drink the Astrop waters, found in that region. 
That simple call proved a turning-point in the life of Locke. 
He seems to have won the favor of Lord Ashley at the 
start. He was invited to stay and sup with him that even- 
ing, and "the result of this short and apparently accidental 



Affecting Philosophic Thought. 269 

interview was the beginning of an intimate friendship, 
which seems never afterwards to have been broken, and 
which exercised a decisive influence on the rest of Locke's 
career." Locke was soon invited to make his home 
with Lord Ashley's family. His counsel and attention 
were the means of saving Lord Ashley's life, and thereby 
winning his grateful affection. It was in the home thus 
opened to him that he gained time for his philosophical 
studies, while its associations enabled him to extend his 
acquaintance into the outer world of thought and action. 
There it was that, at his friend's suggestion, Locke 
wrote his first essay on Toleration, the substance of 
which was so influential, in other forms, in later years. 
There also it was that, in an evening's discussion with 
" five or six friends " concerning the " principles of 
morality," Locke began "a careful examination of the 
exact limits of man's power to know the universe," as a 
means of finding a way out of the difficulties that pre- 
sented themselves in the discussion. And this was the 
beginning of his famous " Essay Concerning Human 
Understanding," which Hallam calls " the first real chart 
of the coast," and which was given to the public twenty 
years after this beginning. " This work gave intellectual 
unity and a purpose to his life as a man of letters and 
philosophy," and its opportunity as well as its inspiration 
was a result of Locke's friendship with Lord Shaftesbury. 
Locke had the oversight of Lord Shaftesbury's son; 
and such confidence was reposed in him by his friend, 
that the duty of finding a suitable wife for the young- 
lord was committed to him, and was satisfactorily dis- 
charged. When Lord Shaftesbury was made Lord High 



270 Affecting Philosophic Thought. 

Chancellor, he secured a lucrative appointment for his 
friend Locke ; and it was by this means that the latter 
was brought into the activities and responsibilities of 
public life, where he was enabled to accomplish so much 
for his fellows. At every step of his progress it was a 
friendship that prompted to his best and most efficient 
service. Thus it was by way of counsel to one of his 
friends, Edward Clarke of Chipley, in the training of 
his children, that Locke first wrote the substance of his 
treatise on Education; and subsequently it was through 
this friend Clarke, as the leading manager on the part of 
the House of Commons in its conference with the House 
of Lords over the Licensing Act, that Locke was enabled 
to secure the adoption of his liberal views concerning 
the limits of censorship of the press ; a step which, accord- 
ing to Macaulay "has done more for liberty and for civ- 
ilization than the Great Charter, or the Bill of Rights." 

In turn, Locke was on terms of special friendship with 
the great Sydenham, and his associate Mapletoft ; with 
Sir Isaac Newton, and Robert Boyle ; with Limborch, 
and Le Clerc ; with Lords Somers and Monmouth and 
Pembroke ; as well as with Edward Clarke, and Lord 
Shaftesbury, as above mentioned ; and each of these 
friends had his influence on Locke's thinking and doing. 
The place that friendship held in the life-forces of Locke 
is evidenced in the way in which he spoke of a friend 
who for the time being had control of his mind and heart. 
William Molyneaux of Dublin, who represented the Uni- 
versity of that city in the Irish Parliament, was such a 
friend. The two came to love each other through corres- 
pondence. Before they had yet met they were attached 



A ff effing Philosophic Thought. 271 



friends, and the feeling of affection between them had 
"become as intense," says a biographer of Locke, "as if 
they had lived together all their lives." In his second 
letter, Locke wrote to Molyneaux : " You must expect 
to have me live with you hereafter with all the liberty 
and assurance of a settled friendship." And when, two 
or three years later, the possibility of a visit from Moly- 
neaux was in Locke's mind, he wrote : " I cannot but 
exceedingly wish for that happy day when I may see a 
man I have so often longed to have in my embraces. . . . 
You cannot think how often I regret the distance that is 
between us; I envy Dublin for what I every day want in 
London." As to the bearing that such a friendship 
would have on his philosophic thinking, Locke wrote to 
Molyneaux : " There is one place vacant that I know 
nobody would so well fill as yourself; I want one near 
me to talk freely with, de quolibet ente, to propose to the 
extravagancies that rise in my mind; one with whom I 
would debate several doubts and questions to see what 
was in them." 

After six years of this friendship without a meeting, 
Molyneaux visited Locke in England, and the two friends 
had rare enjoyment in their unrestrained converse. " I 
will venture to assert to you," wrote Molyneaux after his 
return, " that I cannot recollect, through the whole course 
of my life, such signal instances of real friendship as when 
I had the happiness of your company for five weeks 
together in London." It was not long after this that 
Molyneaux died, and that Locke wrote of him : " His 
worth and friendship to me made him an inestimable 
treasure, which I must regret the loss of, the little remain- 



272 Affecting Philosophic Thought. 

der of my life, without any hopes of repairing it any 
way." Then, as showing that Locke's friendship was 
real friendship, he went on to ask his correspondent if 
there was any service he could render to the son of 
Molyneaux. " They who have the care of him cannot 
do me a greater pleasure than to give me the opportunity 
to show that my friendship died not with his father." 

It would seem as if Locke must have a friend to love, 
and to give himself out to. After the death of Moly- 
neaux, Locke made the acquaintance of young Anthony 
Collins, who subsequently became prominent as a Deis- 
tical writer; and he was warmly drawn to him by the 
young man's apparent desire to know the truth, in lines 
of philosophic and religious study. The new acquaint- 
ance ripened into friendship. " Why do you make your- 
self so necessary to me ? " wrote Locke to Collins, only 
a year before his death. " I thought myself pretty loose 
from the world ; but I feel you begin to fasten me to it 
again ; for you make my life, since I have had your 
friendship, much more valuable to me than it was before." 
And he added, in illustration of the practical value of 
friendship to a thinker : " If I were now setting out in 
the world, I should think it my great happiness to have 
such a companion as you, who had a relish for truth, 
would in earnest seek it with me, from whom I might 
receive it undisguised, and to whom I might communi- 
cate freely what I thought true." 

Yet another beautiful illustration of Locke's enjoyment 
of, and profit from, friendship, is found in his intimacy 
with Lady Masham. She was the daughter of Dr. Ralph 
Cudworth, author of the well-known work, "The In- 



A ff effing Philosophic Thought. 273 

tellectual System of the Universe." Locke had known 
Damaris Cudworth, and been her friend, while she was 
yet unmarried. Her interest in his studies was an inspi- 
ration and a help to him, and when she became the sec- 
ond wife of Sir Francis Masham she welcomed Locke to 
her new home; and after a while he was induced to take up 
his residence with that friend ; as he had, in the beginning 
of his career, made his home with his friend Lord Ashley. 
For the last fourteen years of his life Locke lived in 
close and delightful intimacy with this good friend. Her 
influence on his later writings, and on the revision of his 
earlier ones, was considerable ; and the help of her friend- 
ship gave him increased power for good in his varied 
labors of love. Lady Masham was as a daughter to her 
fatherly friend Locke; and when at last he breathed out 
his gentle spirit in death, she was watching over him with 
tenderness and sympathy ; and afterwards she aided to 
honor his memory and extend his influence by her remi- 
niscences of his life -story. 

Among the developments or outgrowths of Locke's 
theoretical philosophy, in the British mind, were the 
idealism, or phenomenalism, of George Berkeley, and the 
skepticism of David Hume, as philosophical systems. 
The apostles of these two systems, like all other repre- 
sentative philosophers, were influenced and aided by 
friendship in their thinking and being. 

Professor Fraser, the biographer of the first named of 
these eminent men, says that " the early years and the 
ancestry' of George Berkeley are curiously shrouded in 
mystery," and that " he comes forth the most subtle and 
accomplished philosopher of his time, almost from dark- 

18 



274 AffeEling Philosophic Thought. 

ness." Yet in view of the " exquisite purity and gen- 
erosity of character " that marked this man of such 
" extraordinary merits as a writer and thinker," it is not 
to be wondered at that in the first glimpse we have of 
him, as a boy eleven years old in the school or college 
at Kilkenny (which has been called the "Eton of Ire- 
land "), he is found entering into a close friendship with 
Thomas Prior, a schoolmate some four years his senior, 
who is to prove his closest friend and constant helper for 
more than half a century. Berkeley and Prior were sub- 
sequently fellow-students at Trinity College, Dublin. It 
was there that Berkeley began his philosophical studies; 
and in them all he was sure of aid and sympathy from 
Prior. As the years went on, Prior was always at hand 
in any emergency. He was the man of affairs for his 
friend, caring for his business interests, and counseling 
him in all practical matters. Prior was one of the 
founders of the Royal Irish Society, and was interested 
in study as well as in business. He was an enthusiastic 
advocate of his friend Berkeley's tar-water theories, when 
the great philosopher thought that he had discovered in 
tar " an extraordinary proportion of the vital element of 
the universe," and that by means of this simple agency 
he would be able to mitigate human suffering, prolong 
human life, and materially advance the interests of hu- 
manity. Prior was intimate with Lord Chesterfield, 
when the latter was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and he 
interceded with the Earl in behalf of the tar-water proj- 
ects of his friend Berkeley. Chesterfield testified to the 
worth of Prior "as one who had no view in life but to do 
the utmost good he is capable of." For fifty-five years 



Affecting Philosophic Thought. 275 

the intimacy and correspondence between these two 
friends was kept up with unabated heartiness, until Prior 
died in Dublin; and Berkeley survived his friend only 
a little more than a year. To the last, Prior was " dear 
Tom" to the great philosopher and godly bishop, as he 
had been to plain George Berkeley in their early school- 
days at Kilkenny; and none can question that his friend- 
ship was a factor in the life-work of the friend to whom 
he was so devoted. 

Other friendships, early and later, had their part in 
influencing Berkeley. Thomas Contarini, "the good 
uncle of Oliver Goldsmith," a chum of Berkeley at Trin- 
ity College, aided him in a philosophical experiment to 
ascertain the sensations of a person in being hanged, by 
tying Berkeley to a beam of the ceiling and pulling a 
chair from under his feet, at almost the cost of his life. 
And this was but a specimen of the co-work of Berke- 
ley's college friends in his investigations of natural phe- 
nomena. Samuel Molyneaux,son of William Molyneaux, 
a friend of John Locke, was an attached friend of Berke- 
ley before the young philosopher had issued his first 
important treatises, and Berkeley dedicated one of his 
works to him. Molyneaux afterwards presented Berke- 
ley to the Prince of Wales, and otherwise aided him into 
prominence. Sir John Percival, later the Earl of Egmont, 
was a warm friend and close correspondent of Berkeley 
for years. He did much in the way of obtaining im- 
portant criticisms of Berkeley's works, that aided him in 
maturing and developing his views. Dean Swift also 
was a valued and valuable friend. He introduced Berke- 
ley at the Court of Queen Anne, and he secured his 



276 Affe fling Philosophic Thought. 

appointment by Lord Peterborough as chaplain and 
secretary of the embassy to Sicily, thus enabling him 
to travel under advantageous circumstances. Among 
Berkeley's warm friends in London were Richard Steele, 
Joseph Addison, Alexander Pope, and Bishop Atterbury. 
By means of these friendships his fortunes as well as his 
studies were materially influenced. He formed friend- 
ships also with Archbishop Seeker and Bishop Rundle 
and Bishop Benson, whose names are linked with his in 
the familiar lines of Pope : 

" Even in a bishop I can spy desert ; 
Seeker is decent, Rundle has a heart : 
Manners with candor are to Benson given, 
To Berkeley every virtue under heaven." 

In fact, Berkeley's spirit was peculiarly the spirit of friend- 
ship, and his friendships had their part in shaping and in 
making influential his philosophical speculations. 

David Hume has a place of importance in the history 
of modern philosophy, rather through that which his 
speculations led to, than in aught which they arrived at. 
" His destructive criticism," says Professor William 
Knight, " has been quite as helpful to the progress of the 
human mind, as the constructive efforts which it over- 
threw, chiefly because it cleared the atmosphere of mist. 
It took the mind of England, and subsequently that of 
Europe, away from secondary and outlying questions to 
those which are primary, and compelled it to probe the 
philosophy of experience to the core — thus preparing 
the way for the critical idealism of Kant, and rendering 
its rise inevitable." And Ueberweg says, in confirmation 
of this view, that " in Germany it was chiefly the Skepti- 



Affecting Philosophic Thought. 277 

cism of Hume which incited Immanuel Kant to the con- 
struction of his Critical Philosophy." And David Hume 
was not wholly unlike George Berkeley, in the attractive- 
ness of his personal character and in his dependence on 
personal friendships. The earliest extant letter of Hume's, 
written when he was about sixteen years old, was ad- 
dressed to a very dear young friend, Michael Ramsay, 
of whom little is known save that he continued to be the 
valued and helpful friend of Hume for at least fifty-one 
years after this. This earliest letter is full of friendship. 
Hume tenderly chides Ramsay for his self-sacrificing 
endeavors in his behalf, while he suggests that he would 
have done much the same himself. The immediate sub- 
ject: of the correspondence was the philosophic specula- 
tions of Hume, upon which he had desired Ramsay's 
comments. Ramsay had evidently promised to visit 
Hume and talk the matter over with him, and this was a 
delight to Hume. " For," he added, " the free conversa- 
tion of a friend is what I would prefer to any entertain- 
ment." From this time forward Ramsay was the trusted 
friend and confidant of Hume so long as they both lived. 
It is perhaps true, as one of his latest biographers asserts, 
that Hume "never loved any one intensely," and that 
" constitutionally he could not identify himself with the 
interests of others ; " yet it is also certainly true that 
Hume from his early life was sure that "friendship is a 
solid and serious thing," and that the sentiment of friend- 
ship, in such measure as he was capable of, had an influ- 
ence over his character and career as potent as any of 
which he felt the sway. 

William Mure of Caldwell, afterwards Baron Mure, 



278 Affe fling Philosophic Thought. 

"was among those who seem to have earliest secured 
and longest retained Hume's esteem;" and for nearly 
forty years the counsel and aid of Mure were of practical 
value to Hume. James Oswald of Dunnekier, who was 
a friend of Hume in his early life, and who remained so 
through his maturer years, is said to have been "infinitely 
serviceable to the speculative labors " of the distinguished 
philosopher. Then there were Matthew Sharp of Hod- 
dam, Gilbert — later Sir Gilbert — Elliott of Minto, and 
yet others, who had their part as Hume's friends in aid- 
ing him in his philosophic thinking. Yet more im- 
portant to him was the friendship of Adam Smith, begun 
when Smith was but seventeen years old and Hume was 
thirty, and continued until the close of Hume's life. The 
friendship of these two men was intimate, and its influence 
was real on both of them. It has been said, indeed, that 
Smith's "Wealth of Nations" would hardly have been 
written but for his friendship with Hume ; and Hume 
expressed his indebtedness to Smith for his rare helpful- 
ness as a friend. It is proof of the attractiveness of David 
Hume's personal character that a friend like Adam Smith 
could publicly say of him, after their long years of in- 
timacy: "Upon the whole, I have always considered 
him, both during his life-time and since his death, as 
approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and 
virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty 
will permit." If friendship could bring a man of David 
Hume's skeptical nature to be thus attractive to a life- 
long friend, friendship certainly had its influence in his 
character and in his philosophy. 

Leibnitz is called " the founder of the German philoso- 



Affecting Philosophic Thought. 279 

phy of the eighteenth century ; " and " the first and last 
of Locke's great critics." Although his philosophy had 
less of originality than was shown by some of his pre- 
decessors, his modifications of the theories of Locke and 
Descartes gained an ascendency in the German mind, and 
held it for a considerable period. It was through his 
friendship with the Baron von Boineburg that Leibnitz 
was led into the sphere of a<5tion that decided his career 
for life. He was hardly more than twenty years old when 
this friendship was formed. As a result of it he was 
brought into intimate relations with the Archbishop of 
Mentz ; and by the great prince bishop he was set at the 
work of assisting in the codifying and reforming the body 
of civil law of the empire. This led to important discus- 
sions involving the metaphysical and political views of 
Leibnitz ; and by the suggestion and with the co-opera- 
tion of his friend Boineburg he made progress in bring- 
ing himself and his theories to public notice. 

A political mission to Paris, undertaken by Leibnitz at 
the request of Boineburg, led to his pleasant intimacy 
with Arnauld and Malebranche, disciples of Descartes, 
and with the great mathematician and physicist Huy- 
gens. These associations had a determinative influence 
on the studies and final theories of Leibnitz. From 
Paris, Leibnitz went to London, and there, also, made 
acquaintances of value. It was while on this absence 
from his home that Leibnitz lost by death both his friend 
Baron Boineburg, and their common patron the Arch- 
bishop of Mentz. But the gain which friendship had al- 
ready secured to him he never lost. It was after the death 
of his friend Boineburg that Leibnitz won the friendship 



280 Affecling Philosophic Thought. 

of Queen Sophia Charlotte, wife of the first king of Prus- 
sia; which proved to be an impelling force in his philo- 
sophical studies. This friendship was a close one, and 
Schwegler is explicit in saying that it was at the prompt- 
ing of Queen Charlotte that Leibnitz undertook his great- 
est work, the Theodicee. And it is Schwegler who, while 
confessing that Leibnitz owes so much to friendship, 
enthusiastically declares that " Leibnitz was, after Aris- 
totle, the greatest genius in his reach of universal knowl- 
edge that ever lived." 

Kant succeeded and transcended Leibnitz as the leader 
of German philosophy. He was the founder of the 
modern critical, or transcendental, school of metaphysics. 
So great was the influence of his works on European 
thought, that they have been placed, in the estimation 
of historical judges, "on a level with the great events 
of the French Revolution, as the most important fac- 
tors in determining the characteristic features of nine- 
teenth century culture." If ever there was a man, in 
modern times, who would seem able to do his own think- 
ing, without the help of friendship, it was this man, who 
has been called "the most profound thinker with whom 
the history of the human mind has made us acquainted;" 
but Kant owed very much, even in his thinking, to per- 
sonal friendship, and he recognized its practical worth 
in the line of his most important life-labors. 

Kant's first impulse toward the studies of his lifetime 
was given to him by his friend, as well as teacher, 
Schultz, while he was under his instruction at the college 
in Konigsberg. And when he was left dependent by the 
death of his father, with his university course yet incom- 



Affecting Philosophic Thought. 281 

plete, it was by the generosity of his attached friend 
Richter that Kant was enabled to go on with his studies. 
In this instance, as in so many another from the days of 
Socrates and Aristotle onward, the friend who had money 
shared his means with the scholar who had none; in 
illustration of the proverb of the ancients, that " the 
property of friends is common." Kant was never mar- 
ried, and he never traveled many miles from the place 
of his birth ; but his very isolation from the outer world 
seemed to give intensity to his personal friendships within 
his limited sphere. Nearest and dearest of his personal 
friends was an English merchant named Green, who was 
resident in Konigsberg. "For years," says Kant's biog- 
rapher, Stiickenberg, " the philosopher and the merchant 
were daily companions, regularly spending several hours 
together." And in proof of the fact that this close friend- 
ship had its shaping influence on the thoughts of the 
great philosopher, Stiickenberg records the fact that 
Kant assured another friend, Jackmann, whom he desired 
to prepare his biography, that "he did not write a sentence 
in the l Kritik ' which he had not first submitted to Green" 

It were easy to continue such sketches of the friend- 
ships of great philosophers; for what has been shown of 
the few could also be shown of the many. But it must 
suffice to have given these more illustrious examples in de- 
tail, with the added assurance that a similar exhibit could 
be made in other cases, hardly less noteworthy, all along 
the record of the centuries. Thus, for instance, the three 
great names that followed Kant in the development of 
German philosophy, are Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel ; 
and friendship shows its force in the case of each and all 



282 A ff effing Philosophic Thought. 

of these, as plainly as in the case of Kant. Fichte was 
indebted to the offices of his attached friend Weisse 
for a position at Zurich, when the death of his early- 
friend and patron Von Miltitz had left him without the 
means of study; and at Zurich he won the friendship 
of Pestalozzi and Lavater, and received impressions that 
affected all his future. Schelling owed much to friend- 
ship; and, like Bacon, both the good side and the bad 
of his nature found quickening through his friendship 
with the Schlegels. Hegel, while still an undergradu- 
ate, formed ties of special friendship with two of his fel- 
low-students — young Schelling, the philosophic thinker, 
and young Holderlin, — whose poetic tastes tended to 
deepen Hegel's interest in Grecian literature and thought. 
It was after Schelling had given public proof of his interest 
in philosophy that Hegel wrote to him of his own grow- 
ing interest in that theme, and of his desire to have such 
help, in bringing his thoughts to bear upon human life, 
as only a personal friend could supply. " Of all the men 
I see around me," he wrote, "you are the one in whom 
I should most desire to find a friend — as in other things, 
so especially in reference to this business of getting my- 
self expressed, and brought into effective contact with the 
world." And for years these two philosophers helped 
each other through friendship. 

And so it might be found in every portion of the field 
of speculative thought. The greatest philosopher is a 
gainer through having a friend ; and even more so through 
being a friend. 




INSPIRING POETRY. 




.OETRY is more to the world than philos- 

[f Kfl-ifS S& °P n y '> f° r P oetr y includes all that philos- 
ophy has to offer, and far more. Poetry- 
swayed the mind of man before philosophy 
had a place there, and poetry is sure of 
an immortality that no system of philosophy can aspire 
to. Philosophy is from the intellect, and its appeal is to 
the intellecl:, while poetry is from the heart to the heart ; 
and where heart-power and the power of intellecl; are in 
comparison, heart-power always leads, and will longest 
endure. 

Love is thought to be the chief inspiration of poetry. 
The suggestion is : 

" Never durst poet touch a pen to write 
Until his pen were temper'd with love's sighs ; " 

and, on the other hand, it is claimed that 
" Poets are all who love." 

But, as friendship transcends all loves, the inspiration of 

283 



284 Inspiring Poetry. 

friendship to a poet is an inspiration that no craving love 
can supply. Impassioned love gives a burning intensity 
to a poet's flame ; while an unselfish friendship enables 
a poet's light to shine out with clear and far-reaching 
beams, like those of the never-failing stars. The poetry 
of the ages owes its inspiration to friendship, more than 
to love. In the world's literature, poetry precedes prose; 
as the nursery song has its place in a child's training 
before the matter-of-fa6l narration. The earliest litera- 
ture of any people is found in its epic poems, with their 
story of the exploits and sayings of ancient heroes ; and 
it is in these epics that the influence of primitive passions 
and sentiments may be traced historically. Foremost 
among the world's representative epics are the Iliad, of 
the Greeks ; the Mahabharata, of the Hindoos ; and the 
Nibelungenlied, of the Germans ; and in all of these 
epics love shows itself as a discordant element, while 
friendship proves a conserving force. 

In the Iliad, love is little more, at its best, than refined 
lust. It is because Helen of Sparta is a type of physical 
beauty that the heroes of Greece are her rival and jealous 
suitors, and that, when she has been won by Menelaus, 
Paris of Troy violates the rights of hospitality, and carries 
her away captive from the home where he was a guest. 
It is another phase of the same selfish passion that brings 
Agamemnon under the wrath of Apollo, by his desire 
for the daughter of Apollo's priest Chryses, and that 
again causes a breach between Agamemnon and Achilles 
over a common obje6l of lustful craving. There is 
nothing ennobling or inspiring in such love as this, in 
the Grecian epic. But how different the influence of 



Inspiring Poetry. 285 

friendship's sentiment ! There is inspiration in the self- 
abnegating affection of Diomedes and Ulysses ; and their 
heroism through mutual love and fidelity is an incite- 
ment and example to succeeding ages. And the friend- 
ship of Patroclus and Achilles is the transcendent charm 
of the Iliad. When love for country is powerless to 
bring the aggrieved hero, Achilles, once more into the 
field against the enemies of Greece, the knowledge that 
his friend Patroclus has been slain, while giving battle in 
his name, arouses him to the purpose of rescuing his 
friend's body and avenging his friend's death ; and on this 
impulse of friendship pivots the issue of the eventful war. 
Friendship shows its surpassing beauty and its pre- 
eminent force, as it rises above the passions and selfish 
instincts of the battle-field, when Diomedes the Greek is 
drawn by friendship toward Glaucus the Trojan, and he 
proffers a covenant of love to him who is for the time 
his enemy. 

" ' Henceforward I will be thy host and friend 
In Argos ; thou shalt be the same to me 
In Lycia when I visit Lycia's towns. 
And let us in the tumults of the fray 
Avoid each other's spears, for there will be 
Enough for me to slay whene'er a god 
Shall bring them in my way. In turn, for thee 
Are many Greeks to smite whomever thou 
Canst overcome. Let us exchange our arms, 
That even these may see that thou and I 
Regard each other as ancestral guests.' 
Thus having said, and leaping from their cars, 
They clasped each other's hands, and pledged their 
faith." 1 

1 Bryant's translation. 



286 Inspiring Poetry. 

So, all through the Iliad, while love provokes jealousy 
and leads to discord, friendship inspires to lofty purposes 
and noble doing. 

The Mahabharata, like the Iliad, is the story of a war 
between rival peoples; and the prolonged conflidt which 
its verses outline is finally decided by the influence of a 
personal friendship, while the loves that it records have 
in them no uplifting influence in comparison with that 
of friendship. In the Mahabharata, the love of the wifely 
heroine, Draupadi, is shared alike by five brothers; 
whereas the friendship of Krishna for the hero of heroes, 
Arjuna, is unfaltering and devoted from first to last. 
When war is inevitable between the Kauravas and the 
Pandavas, each party desires the assistance of the mighty 
Krishna, who is alike a kinsman of both. Duryodhana 
as leader of the Kauravas, and Arjuna as representing 
the Pandavas, visit Krishna at the same time, and solicit 
his aid. The answer of Krishna is : " I will put myself 
alone into one scale, and all the warriors of my army 
into the other scale, and you are welcome to take your 
choice between the two: but if you take me, remember 
that I shall not fight, though I will give counsel." 
Duryodhana prefers Krishna's army to Krishna, think- 
ing within himself, " What comparison is there between 
a single man and thousands of heroes!" But Arjuna 
says promptly : " I at once decide upon taking yourself, 
for whether you go with arms or without, and whether 
you fight or do not fight, your presence will so fortify 
our hearts that it will be worth a hundred thousand 
armies." And when Krishna expresses surprise that 
Arjuna chooses him when he is unwilling to fight, Arjuna 






Inspiring Poetry. 287 

responds: "Although you will not join us in the battle, 
yet if you will but drive my chariot I am assured of 
victory." As, from time immemorial, he who drives the 
chariot is counted the closest friend of him who fights in 
the chariot, this choice of Krishna by Arjuna is the 
choice of a friend ; and the result proves that the friend- 
ship of Krishna and Arjuna gives victory to the Pandavas, 
at the cost of destruction to the Kauravas. The heroism 
of Achilles, and the prevailing influence of his friendship 
for Patroclus, are not more prominent in the story of the 
Iliad than the heroism of Arjuna, and the overmastering 
influence of Krishna's friendship, in the story of the 
Mahabharata. The most sacred of the Brahmanic scrip- 
tures, the Bhagavad Gita, is but the record of one of 
the conversations between the peerless hero Arjuna and 
his charioteer-friend Krishna, in an interval of the great 
battle between the Kauravas and the Pandavas. 

Throughout the Nibelungenlied, as in the Iliad and 
the Mahabharata, the destroying element is love, the con- 
serving force is friendship. The epic opens with the 
jealous rivalry of Kriemhild and Brunhild for the love 
of the hero Siegfried. On the other hand, Siegfried 
gains Kriemhild as his bride through Gunther's friend- 
ship, and Gunther wins Brunhild through the friendship 
of Siegfried. Brunhild's love for Siegfried turns to hate, 
and she seeks his destruction ; but she is powerless against 
him until, by an act of foul treachery on the part of his 
companion Hagen, Siegfried is slain in time of peace. 
Thenceforward the movement of the story is toward the 
vengeance of Kriemhild on the slayer of her husband. 
Years after Siegfried's death, Kriemhild consents to 



288 Inspiring Poetry. 

marry Etzel, king of the Huns, through the intercession 
of his dearest friend, Riidiger von Bechlarn, — this friend 
binding himself by an oath to be her avenger. When, 
on the invitation of Kriemhild, Hagen comes with the 
other Burgundians to the court of Etzel, Kriemhild's 
long-laid plans of vengeance are matured. Then it is 
that the idea of fidelity in friendship becomes the chief 
inspiration of the epic. The brothers of Kriemhild are 
the friends of Hagen, and when, in the bloody conflict in 
the palace of the Huns, she offers them their lives if they 
will surrender the murderer of Siegfried, their united 
cry is that they will all die with Hagen rather than be- 
tray a friend. Thereupon Kriemhild calls on her sworn 
friend Riidiger to make good his oath, and become her 
avenger. But Riidiger has been the host of Hagen and 
his followers, and he is bound to them by ties of affection 
and honor; how then can he turn against them for their 
overthrow? There comes a struggle between conflicting 
duties, and when Riidiger at last decides that his earlier 
oath of friendship to Kriemhild must outweigh every 
other consideration, he has no desire to survive the con- 
test which he enters. In his sensitive regard for the 
rights of his former guest, to whom he must now give 
battle, Riidiger states his case to Hagen, secures his 
approval of his course, transfers to him his shield to 
guard him, as he has before given a trusty sword to 
another of the party ; and Hagen promises, like Diomedes 
to Glaucus, not to strike at Riidiger personally, even 
when their companions and followers are in combat. 
Riidiger, best and truest of men and of friends, falls dead 
under a blow of the sword he had given to the com- 



Inspiring Poetry. 289 

panion of Hagen. Because of Rudiger's death, his 
friend, Sir Dietrich, who had stood aloof from the con- 
flict until now, enters the lists and takes Hagen a pris- 
oner, to deliver him captive to Kriemhild. The epic 
closes with the death of all the heroes, its main idea 
being the exaltation of the sentiment of fidelity in friend- 
ship, as illustrated by the beauty of that sentiment in its 
exercise, and the terribleness of its violation in treachery. 
The source of a poet's inspiration is indicated in the 
highest aspiration that his poetry discloses. Not the 
baser but the nobler sentiments to which he gives ex- 
pression, are those which have helped to make him a 
poet. Even though we may know little of his personal 
history, if we find a poet uplifting a lofty standard for the 
heroes of whom he sings, or giving highest praise to the 
loftiest sentiment of his song, we can be sure that his 
own nature has been stirred in the direction of that 
standard and by the power of that sentiment. When, 
therefore, we find in the earliest epics, and in later lyrics 
and dramas, the transcendency of friendship as an object 
of admiration and honor, we must recognize the proof 
that friendship is the inspirer of poetry and of poets. In 
an essay on " Friendship in Ancient Poetry," Principal 
Shairp calls attention to the facl: that Pindar, greatest of 
lyric poets in Greece, brings out in its rare beauty the 
story of Castor and Pollux, in which Pollux, when bereft 
of his brother-friend Castor, cared not to live any longer, 
but was permitted because of his friendship to share his 
own immortality with his mortal friend ; and that the 
tragic poet Euripides exalts in its admirableness the self- 
abnegating friendship of Orestes and Pylades, when each 

19 



290 Inspiring Poetry. 

friend sought the privilege of dying in the other's stead. 
And the essayist adds, suggestively: " Had not the lyric 
poetry of Greece — all save part of Pindar's — perished, 
there would no doubt have come down to us frequent 
memorials of the love of friends." 

First after Homer, in order of time among the poets 
of ancient Greece, comes Theognis, whose gnomic 
poems were a literary force in the golden days of that 
land of letters and art. We know little of this poet as a 
man ; but we gather from his own writings that his friend 
Cyrnus, son of Polypas, was an inspirer of his poetry, 
and that his gnomic poems were brought together, and 
finished for the public, as a tribute to that friend. 

Bion and Moschus stand out as poet-friends, in the 
days close following Theocritus — the last great poet of 
ancient Greece. Bion dwells with delight on the joys 
of friendship, as if he felt their inspiration. " Happy are 
they that love, when with equal love they are rewarded. 
Happy was Theseus when Pirithous was by his side; yea, 
though he went down to the house of implacable Hades. 
Happy among rude men and inhospitable was Orestes, 
in that Pylades chose to share his wanderings. And he 
was happy, Achilles ^Eacides, while his darling lived; 
happy was he in his death, because he shielded him 
from dread fate." And the choicest pastoral preserved to 
us from the work of Moschus is his lament over his friend 
Bion, of whom he tells as the inspirer of his poetry. 
" Every famous city laments thee, Bion, and all the 
towns. Ascra laments thee far more than her Hesiod, 
and Pindar is less regretted by the forests of Boeotia. 
Nor so much did pleasant Lesbos mourn for Alcseus, 



Inspiring Poetry. 291 

nor did the Teian town so much bewail her poet, while 
for thee more than for Archilochus doth Paros yearn ; 
and not for Sappho, but still for thee, doth Mytilene wail 
her musical lament; and, in Syracuse, Theocritus. But 
I sing thee the dirge of an Ausonian sorrow, — I that am 
no stranger to the pastoral song, but heir of the Doric 
muse which thou didst teach thy pupils. This was thy 
gift to me; to others didst thou leave thy wealth, to me 
thy minstrelsy. . . . But ah ! if I might have gone down 
like Orpheus to Tartarus, or as once Odysseus, or Alcides 
of yore, I too would speedily have come to the house of 
Pluto, that thee perchance I might behold, and if thou 
singest to Pluto, that I might hear what is thy song." 

Cicero refers to the inspiring influence, on the popular 
mind, of the illustrations of unselfish friendship, por- 
trayed in the drama by poets whom this sentiment had 
inspired. " If at any time any act of a friend has been 
exhibited, either in undergoing or in sharing dangers, 
who is there," he asks, "that does not extol such an act 
with the highest praise ? What shouts of applause were 
lately heard through the whole theater, on the occasion 
of a new play by my guest and friend, Marcus Pacuvius, 
when, the king being ignorant which of them was Orestes, 
Pylades said he was Orestes in order that he might be 
put to death instead of him; but Orestes solemnly main- 
tained, as was the fact, that he was the man ! All stood 
up and applauded in an imaginary case; but what must 
we suppose they would have done in a real one ? Nature 
herself excellently asserted her rightful power, when men 
pronounced that to be rightly done in another which 
they could not do themselves." 



292 Inspiring Poetry. 

Down along the centuries, from the earliest epics to 
the most finished lyrics and idyls of every golden age of 
literature, the truest poets have felt the inspiration of the 
truest friendship, and have uplifted that sentiment as an 
ideal before those who might otherwise have failed to 
perceive its transcendent admirableness. Thus inspired 
they have become inspirers in the realm of this noblest 
and most God-like affection. 

Ennius, who is called the father of Latin poetry, and 
whose impress was on the best literary work of his suc- 
cessors, so felt the inspiration of his friendship with 
Scipio Africanus, that, as Cicero reminds us, he felt that 
life would not be "worth living" without the joy that 
comes of having and being a friend. Terence, a leader 
in Latin comic poetry, and Lucilius, the pioneer in 
Roman satire, shared in the friendship of Lselius and 
Scipio; and the friendship which is immortalized in the 
De Amicitia of Cicero was directly an inspiration to these 
poets, while Terence certainly had aid in the composition 
of his comedies by the chiefest of these friends. Catullus 
could never have been the poet he showed himself in his 
passionate expressions of love, if he had not been the 
man he was through his friendship for Veranius, and 
through his unselfish devotedness to his brother-friend 
Hortalus. 

When we reach the golden age of Latin poetry, in the 
days of Virgil and Horace, we find that friendship is the 
very center of the innermost poetic circle. Maecenas 
inspires friendship in the hearts of the poets, and by in- 
spiring their friendship he inspires their poetry. Varius, 
and Pollio, and Tibullus, and Virgil, and Horace, are of 



Inspiring Poetry. 293 

those who feel and show this inspiring influence. Virgil 
tells tenderly of his ever-growing love for his earliest 
friend and schoolmate, Gallus. He sings exultantly the 
praise of friendship, in the story of the hero-friends, 
Nisus and Euryalus. Two of his Eclogues are addressed 
to his friend Pollio. His most finished poems, the 
Georgics, are written at the special request of his friend 
Maecenas. And at the approach of death he names his 
friend and fellow-poet Varius as one of his literary exec- 
utors, to whom should be entrusted the care of his unfin- 
ished work and of his reputation. Neither Horace nor 
Virgil could have been what he was, without the other's 
friendship ; and both of these poets owed much to 
Maecenas as patron and friend. 

Sir Theodore Martin, in his " Life of Horace," speaks 
of this poet's friendship with Maecenas as "among the 
closest and most affectionate on record." "Throughout 
the intimate intercourse of thirty years which ensued " 
after the beginning of their friendship, he says, "there 
was no trace of condescension on the one hand, nor of 
servility on the other. Maecenas gave the poet a place 
next his heart." And " Horace is never weary of ac- 
knowledging how much he owes to his friend. When 
he praises him it is without flattery. When he soothes 
his anxieties or calms his fears, the words glow with 
unmistakable sincerity. When he resists his patron's 
wishes, he is firm without being ungracious. When he 
sports with his foibles he is familiar without the slightest 
shade of impertinence." The Sabine farm near Tivoli 
was a gift of friendship from Maecenas to Horace; which 
secured to the poet both a competency and the pleasures 



294 Inspiring Poetry. 

of a country life. " It gave him leisure and amusement, 
and opportunities for that calm intercourse with nature 
which he needed for his spirit's health." And " it at once 
prompted much of that poetry which has made Maecenas 
famous, and has afforded ever-new delight to successive 
generations." It has been said that Horace "gave to 
friendship the ardor which other men give to love;" but 
it might better be said that Horace illustrates, in his life 
and verse, how much every true poet owes to the inspi- 
ration of friendship. When, indeed, the thought of losing 
the companionship of Maecenas by death pressed home 
on the heart of Horace, his cry of agony went up : 

" Why wilt thou kill me with thy boding fears ? 
Why, O Maecenas, why ? 
Before thee lies a train of happier years ; 

Yes, nor the gods, nor I, 
Could brook that thou shouldst first be laid in dust, 
Thou art my stay, my glory, and my trust ! 

"Ah, if untimely Fate should snatch thee hence, 

Thee, of my soul a part, 
Why should I linger on, with deadened sense, 

And ever-aching heart, 
A worthless fragment of a fallen shrine ? 

No, no, one day shall see thy death and mine ! 

"Think not that I have sworn a bootless oath ; 
Yes, we shall go, shall go, 
Hand linked in hand, whene'er thou leadest both 
The last road below." 1 

Maecenas, dying, commended with almost his last words 
his friend Horace to his imperial friend Augustus; and 
Horace, within a few brief weeks, followed his friend, as 

1 Sir Theodore Martin's translation. 



Inspiring Poetry. 295 

he had promised. Side by side the friends were buried 
on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. 

Next, in order of time, after Horace, as a satirist, comes 
Persius; and, with all the intensity of his denunciation 
of the vices and follies of his age, there is, in the poetry 
of Persius an evidence of such sympathy with all that is 
pure and noble that his writings found exceptional favor 
among the early Christians, and have a peculiar charm 
to many to the present day. That it was the inspiration 
of friendship that gave Persius his best and truest im- 
pulses, his own emphatic words bear witness. He was 
only sixteen years old, when he became the pupil and 
the friend of Annaeus Cornutus, the Stoic philosopher. 
Persius was of a noble family, while Cornutus was at the 
best only a freedman, and originally a slave from Libya; 
but Cornutus was a true friend to Persius, and Persius 
realized this facl: with all that it might bring to him. 
"To thee," says Persius to Cornutus, in grateful con- 
fidence, "now, at the exhortation of the Muse, I give my 
heart to be searched out; and I long to tell thee, my 
sweet friend, how large a portion of my heart is yours." 
Recalling his debt of gratitude to his friend as his guide 
and teacher, Persius says: "When the path was doubt- 
ful, and ignorance of pitfalls of life was drawing trembling 
minds to the branching cross-roads, 'twas then I leaned 
on thee. Thou didst receive my tender years, Cornutus. 
Then the straight rule skilfully applied made straight my 
warped morals; . . . and my countenance came to be 
molded by thy thumb. . . . Our task was one, and to- 
gether we arranged our times of rest. Thou canst not 
doubt that the days of us both have been set in unison 



296 Inspiring Poetry. 

by one fixed principle, and are derived from one star." 
Thrasea Paetus, "the noblest specimen of Stoicism which 
the Roman world produced in the first century of the 
Empire," was also an attached friend of Persius ; as, 
again, was the young poet Caesius Bassus, to whom he 
addresses his sixth satire ; and both of these friends had 
their part in uplifting his ideals and in inspiring his best 
work. But it was the friendship of Cornutus that was 
the making of Persius ; and when the poet died all his 
property was bequeathed to this friend, and his literary 
productions were committed to his keeping. 

And so it is with the record of all the classic poets. 
Friendship is an inspiration to that which is best and 
noblest in poet and poetry. 

It has been held by modern scholars that the peculiar 
prominence given to friendship among the ancient Greeks, 
and their Roman imitators, was a result of the absence 
of domestic love in its highest purity; and that the 
progress of Christianity brought other sentiments into 
the place of friendship, so that it could no longer have 
that pre-eminence which the Greeks accorded to it. 
Principal Shairp expresses the thought of many, when 
he says of the old-time views of friendship : " Affection 
of this kind was the highest moral power known to the 
Greeks, the central purifying power in Greek ethics. It 
was ... to the Greeks not only an enjoyment, a pleasant 
ornament of life, it was a necessity for all higher souls, 
an essential element in their daily life, the antidote to 
selfishness and narrow-mindedness. It was the touch- 
stone of Hellenic virtue while their greatness lasted. . . . 
It was the real soul of ancient life, shedding a grace and 



Inspiring Poetry. 297 

a bloom over its clear-cut outlines. It supplied at once 
that tender devotion which religion has engendered, and 
that imaginative romance with which Christianity and 
chivalry have combined to invest womanhood." 

This view of the case is correct in its explanation of 
the prominence given to friendship by the Greeks; but 
it is a mistaken view in its suggestion that Christianity 
and chivalry have lessened the relative importance of the 
sentiment of friendship among personal and social virtues. 
Self-abnegating friendship still is, as it always has been, 
the transcendent human affection, man-ward and God- 
ward. Among the. ancient Greeks, when woman was 
little else than an object of passionate desire, and a wife 
was rather a servant than a companion, the ties of family 
had no such sacredness or binding force as those of a 
voluntary affection resulting from a generous and lofty 
purpose ; and then it was that the sentiment of friend- 
ship at its best was the one gleam of divine truth falling 
on men's pathway, to lead them onward and upward 
toward unfailing light. Even then there were sugges- 
tions of the possibility of friendship between husband 
and wife, as in the case of Hector and Andromache ; 
between brothers, as in the case of Castor and Pollux; 
and between brother and sister, as in the case of Orestes 
and Electra; but such instances were exceptional in the 
history of the race, until Christianity intensified and 
extended the power of friendship within the family circle, 
as well as outside of it. It was through the uplifting 
sentiment of friendship, in its purity and its ennobling 
power, that chivalry did its best work in the world, and 
that Christianity came to exhibit its refining and elevat- 



298 Inspiring Poetry. 

ing influence in the best social life of these later cen- 
turies. When Christian chivalry had elevated a man's 
unselfish friendship for a woman who could never be his 
wife, above any passion of love for a woman whom he 
sought for himself, a new era had begun in the world, 
and woman had a new and loftier place among men. 

Chivalry was first known as pivoting on a devoted 
friendship of man for man, — two companions-in-arms 
being ready to do and dare and die for each other, be- 
cause of their mutual love. But the progress of Chris- 
tianity caused men to see the superiority of woman over 
man in purity and nobleness, and to honor and revere 
her because of that superiority in its revelation of God's 
likeness. Then came an advance in the relation of a 
knightly servitor to his mistress. He was no longer her 
suitor, but her friend. His chief desire was not to marry 
her, but to be worthy of her recognition of himself as 
brave and pure and true through his loyal devotion to 
her, or to the ideal which she held before him. Not 
because of any disrespect for the married state, but in 
order to keep the sentiment of unselfish friendship for 
his mistress above temptation or suspicion, it was held, 
in the best days of chivalry, that the highest and purest 
affection of a knight for his mistress was possible only 
where there was no thought of marriage between them 
as an outcome of their relation as friends. The laws of 
the Court of Love (which found their expression in the 
Codex Amoris, attributed to King Arthur, but probably 
put into form in the thirteenth century) affirmed that 
chivalrous love would be terminated by the marriage of 
the lovers to each other. Either party might marry 



Inspiring Poetry, 299 

another without the interruption of the friendship; but 
their union in marriage was not deemed consistent with 
that exalted and unselfish sentiment which should actu- 
ate and control a knight in his chivalrous love for the 
woman who was his inspiration to noble being and noble 
doing. "The only senses allowed to be the vehicle of 
chivalrous love," says Richard Simpson, "were the eyes 
and ears. The lover was forbidden to go beyond gaz- 
ing on, or hearing, or thinking of, his love." These 
restrictions were deemed necessary in the effort to uplift 
an uncraving love above all selfish desire; and their 
result, as a means of training, was a purer life for man 
and a loftier position and worthier character for woman. 
This truth is emphasized by Charles Mills, in his his- 
toric review of the influence of chivalry, when he says : 
"Woman was sustained in her proud elevation by the 
virtues which chivalry required of her; and man paid 
homage to her mind as well as to her beauty. She was 
not the mere subject of pleasure, taken up or thrown 
aside as passion or caprice suggested ; but, being the 
fountain of honor, her image was always blended with 
the fairest visions of his fancy, and the respectful con- 
sideration which she, therefore, met with, showed she 
was not an unworthy awarder of fame. Fixed by the 
gallant warriors of chivalry in a nobler station than that 
which had been assigned to her by the polite nations of 
antiquity, all the graceful qualities of her nature blos- 
somed into beauty, and the chastening influence of 
feminine gentleness and tenderness was, for the first 
time in his history, experienced by man." 

Such a sentiment as that which, in chivalry, conjoined 



300 Inspiring Poetry. 

thoughts of God and an unselfish love could not be 
limited to the minds of martial knights. Illustrated and 
uplifted by these men of heroic action, it would be sure 
to lay hold of the better nature of men of profound thought 
and of profounder feeling, and inspire them to grander 
conceptions and loftier aspirings. And so it was that 
this Christianized view of friendship became the inspira- 
tion of modern poetry at its best; as a pure and sacred 
friendship had been the inspiration of the best classic 
and primeval poetry. 

Modern poetry may be said to have begun with Dante. 
Dante was born at a time when chivalry in its best ex- 
hibit of heroic action was already on the wane; while 
the influence of its self-abnegating spirit, in its reverent 
loyalty to the ideal of pure womanhood, remained as its 
choicest legacy to the world. Impressibility of nature, 
purity of mind, and intensity of feeling, were the char- 
acteristics of Dante from his earliest youth; and these 
characteristics gave him his special susceptibility to the 
best influences of his day. As chivalry required a would- 
be knight to begin his special training at seven years of 
age, and to choose early the woman who was to be his 
inspiration to high thinking and noble achieving, young 
Dante was yet but nine years old when he was impressed 
with a sense of the loveliness and worth of a pure-minded 
maiden a year younger than himself, and loyally yielded 
to her the homage of his unselfish friendship. This 
recognition of Beatrice Portinari as the object of his 
uncraving love, is designated by Dante as the beginning 
of a "new life" to him; and in his Vita Nnova he tells 
the story of the growing inspiration which possessed his 



Inspiring Poetry. 301 

whole being through the ideal which she presented to 
him. From the first, Dante had so exalted an estimate 
and so overpowering a sense of the womanly purity and 
grace of Beatrice, that he could not be at ease, or seem 
" himself," in her presence. He suffered in the conscious- 
ness that he presented "so contemptible an appearance" 
before her, through his embarrassment; but his absorb- 
ing regard for herself as herself caused him renewedly 
to forget his failures and to seek anew the inspiration of 
her presence; "Therefore past sufferings," he said, "hold 
me not back from seeking the sight of her." Dante 
seems never to have sought Beatrice in marriage, or to 
have been on terms of intimacy with her. His whole 
thought was of her transcendent worth, and his desire 
was simply to live as became the friend of one so good 
and lovely as she, — in accordance with the sentiment of 
the purest chivalry concerning the duty of a true knight 
to the woman to whom he was a friend. 

For a while Beatrice was accustomed to greet Dante 
with a gracious salutation as they met, and this always 
brought him to "the bounds of bliss." But by his very 
efforts to avoid causing her disturbance he caused her to 
so misunderstand him that she withdrew her salutations, 
and this abashed him more than ever when he met her, 
while it in no degree lessened his love for her. It was 
at this time that he was asked by a group of ladies, "To 
what end lovest thou this thy lady, since thou canst not 
sustain her presence? Tell us, for sure the end of such 
a love must be most strange." Thereupon his answer 
was : " My ladies, the end of my love was formerly the 
salutation of this lady of whom you perchance are think- 



302 Inspiring Poetry. 

ing, and in that dwelt the beatitude which was the end 
of all my desires. But since it has pleased her to deny 
it to me, my lord Love, through his grace, hath placed 
all my beatitude in that which cannot fail me." This 
beatitude which could not fail Dante was the privilege 
of being her friend, of loving her and admiring her and 
sounding her praise, whatever her opinion of him might 
be. "And I proposed," he said, "to take for theme of 
my speech, always henceforward, that which should be 
the praise of this most gentle one." In pursuance of this 
resolve Dante told in poetry of the graces of Beatrice in 
her character and in her person, including, according to 
the customs of the times, her figure, her eyes, and her 
lips. But having done this he added, in assurance of the 
purity of his friendship — as uncraving love: "And in 
order that every evil thought may be removed hence, let 
him who readeth remember what is written above, that 
the salutation of this lady, which was an action of her 
mouth, was the end of my desires, so long as I was able 
to receive it." 

There was an inevitable conflict: of feelings in the mind 
of Dante, with, on the one hand, his desire to be worthy 
of the approval of the woman whose ideal inspired him, 
and, on the other hand, his oppressive sense of short- 
coming in his best endeavors. Confessing to this con- 
flict, he said : " The lordship of Love is good, in that it 
withdraweth the inclination of his liegeman from all vile 
things ; " and again : "The lordship of Love is not good, 
because the more fidelity his liegeman beareth to him, 
so much the heavier and more grievous trials he must 
needs endure." Yet through all these mental struggles 



Inspiring Poetry. 303 

as a result of his unselfish love, Dante was conscious 
that he was himself the gainer through this friendship, 
and that all with whom he had to do were thereby 
advantaged. He longed to tell her how he was " dis- 
posed to her influence, and how her virtue wrought in " 
him. And in speaking of the effect upon him of a sight 
of her in her goodness, he said : " There no longer 
remained to me an enemy ; nay, a flame of charity pos- 
sessed me, which made me pardon every one who had 
done me wrong; and had any one at that time questioned 
me of anything, my only answer would have been ' Love,' 
and my face would have been clothed with humility." 

Beatrice Portinari was married, and this, it would seem, 
without her ever knowing the measure of love she had 
inspired in Dante ; and then she died. But neither her 
marriage nor her death made Dante any less truly her 
friend ; for his friendship, like all true friendship, was 
conditioned, not on what the loved one was to her friend, 
but on what she was in herself. The inspiration of her 
memory was no less potent in Dante's mind than the 
inspiration of her presence. After her death, and after 
his triumph over a temptation to give her a lower place 
in his mind, Dante recorded this new purpose of his : "A 
wonderful vision appeared to me, in which I saw things 
which made me resolve to speak no more of this blessed 
one until I could more worthily treat of her. And to 
attain to this I study to the utmost of my power, as she 
truly knoweth. So that, if it shall please Him through 
whom all things live, that my life shall be prolonged for 
some years, I hope to say of her what was never said of 
any woman." The outcome of this purpose of Dante 



304 Inspiring Poetry. 

was the Divina Commedia, reflecting all the struggles of 
his tender nature, and all the varied experiences of his 
life of disappointment and trial, transfigured in the light 
of a sacred and inspiring friendship. 

" Ah ! from what agonies of heart and brain, 
What exultations trampling on despair, 
What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong, 
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain, 
Uprose this poem of the earth and air, 
This medieval miracle of song! " x 

Dante's simple narrative, in his Vita Nuova, of his 
feelings and experiences as the true-hearted friend of a 
woman, with whom his relations can never be aught but 
those of friendship, who commands his loving reverence, 
and whose lofty ideal inspires while it abashes him, is so 
true to nature that it has bewildered those critics and 
commentators who were unready to accept it in its sim- 
plicity. It has seemed, indeed, to be too simple for plain 
fact. Yet there is no better illustration, in all the ages, 
of the inspiring power, over a true man's mind, of a pure 
friendship for a true woman, without craving and with- 
out wavering. Moreover, to one who has had all of 
Dante's experiences, all the experiences of Dante seem 
most natural. 

A noteworthy confirmation of the fact that in Dante's 
day the highest refinement of poetic sentiment was evi- 
denced in a reverent admiration of a true woman, apart 
from all craving love or selfish desire, is given in one of 
Sordello's poems. Sordello was a predecessor of Dante, 
whom Dante admired and honored. He lived yet nearer 

1 Longfellow. 



Inspiring Poetry. 305 

to the Crusades than Dante, and his writings are shaped 
by the influences of his age. " In the south of France 
the spirit of chivalry was beginning to express itself, and 
it found utterance in Provencal poetry. Sordello was a 
troubadour, if we may believe some of those who have 
written of him ; and he had some of the finer, as well as 
some of the coarser qualities which were associated with 
chivalry." And this is Sordello's conception of an un- 
selfish love : 

" I love a lady, fair without a peer, 
Serve her I'd rather, though she ne'er requite 
My love, than give myself to other dames, 
However richly they might pay their knight. 
Requite me not ? Nay. He who serves a dame 
Whose honor, grace, and virtue shine like day, 
Can do no service which the very joy 
Of doing doth not bounteously repay. 
For other recompense I will not pine, 
But should it come, her pleasure still is mine." * 

Close following Dante as a poet was Petrarch; and 
Petrarch's inspiration through friendship was not unlike 
that of Dante's. It was the same chivalrous recognition 
of a lofty ideal represented by a pure woman, to whom 
he could never be more, and to whom he would never 
be less, than an unselfish friend, that gave to each of 
these Christian knights that sense of personal lack and 
that purpose of high attainment which made him the 
poet he was, and which won him his exalted place 
in the world of literature. Petrarch, like Dante, dates 
the beginning of a new life from his first sight of the 
woman who so commanded his admiration and rever- 

1 F. M. Holland's translation. 
20 



306 Inspiring Poetry. 

ence that he became her friend for always. Laura de 
Noves was already the wife of Hugh de Sade when, on 
April 6, 1327, Petrarch first saw her in the church of St. 
Clara of Avignon. But the fa6l that Laura was married 
was no barrier to such a pure and unselfish friendship as 
Petrarch gave to her, and as accorded with the highest 
conception of the best Christian chivalry of the period. 
She was then about nineteen years of age, and he was 
not quite twenty-three. At once he was drawn away 
from himself and toward that which was purer and 
nobler than his earlier enjoyments, in order to become 
worthy of one so lovely, so admirable, and so good, as 
he deemed her to be. Petrarch's very reverence for 
Laura was, indeed, an embarrassment to him and to her; 
and their kindly intercourse was less immediately helpful 
to either than it might have proved to both, had his 
obvious estimate of her not been so exalted and peculiar. 
But with all the unrest and self-reproaches and manifold 
discomforts that were a result to him, and with all the 
mental pain that she may have endured in consequence 
of this friendship and its expression, it was an unfailing 
incitement and inspiration to him, and this is to her 
unfailing honor. 

It was for what she was in herself, and not for what 
she was or ever could be to him, that Petrarch loved 
Laura with friendship's unswerving love. His warmest 
praises of her grace and beauty breathe this truth : 

" The stars, the elements, and Heaven have made 
With blended powers a work beyond compare ; 
All their consenting influence, all their care, 
To frame one perfect creature lent their aid. 



Inspiring Poetry. 307 

Whence Nature views her loveliness displayed 

With sun-like radiance sublimely fair ; 

Nor mortal eye can the pure splendor bear : 

Love, sweetness, in unmeasured grace arrayed. 

The very air illumed by her sweet beams 

Breathes purest excellence ; and such delight, 

That all expression far beneath it gleams. 

No base desire lives in that heavenly light, 

Honor alone and virtue! — fancy's dreams 

Never saw passion rise refined by rays so bright." x 

Of the origin of his surpassing friendship for her, he says : 

" Fair fame, bright honor, virtue firm, rare grace, 
The chastest beauty in celestial frame, — 
These be the roots whence birth so noble came. 
Such ever in my mind her form I trace, 
A happy burden and a holy thing, 
To which on reverent knee with loving prayer I cling." 2 

Because Laura is what she is, Petrarch would rather 
be her unrequited friend than have the fullest friend- 
ship of one less worthy of his devotion. In all his pain- 
ful inability to prove himself the friend he longs to be — 

" One comfort rests — better to suffer so 
For her, than others to enjoy." 3 

That his friendship for Laura was the inspiration of 
Petrarch's best poetry is obvious in the fact that his fame 
as a poet rests on his poems in her praise; and he him- 
self is ever forward to give her credit for his highest 
attainments as a poet: 

" Blest be the year, the month, the hour, the day, 
The season and the time, and point of space, 
And blest the beauteous country and the place 
Where first of two bright eyes I felt the sway : 

1 Capel Loft's translation. 2 Macgregor's translation. 3 Ibid. 



308 Inspiring Poetry. 

Blest the sweet pain of which I was the prey, 

When newly doomed Love's sovereign law to embrace, 

And blest the bow and shaft to which I trace 

The wound that to my inmost heart found way : 

Blest be the ceaseless accents of my tongue, 

Unwearied breathing my loved lady's name ; 

Blest my fond wishes, sighs, and tears, and pains : 

Blest be the lays in which her praise I sung, 

That on all sides acquired to her fair fame, 

And blest my thoughts ! for o'er them all she reigns." * 

After Laura's death, Petrarch finds himself striving in 
vain after his former attainment as a poet : 

" But she is gone whose inspiration hung 
On all my words, and did my thoughts beguile. 
My numbers harsh seemed melody awhile, 
Now she is mute who o'er them music flung." 2 

Best of all, in proof of the truth that it was an unselfish 
friendship, and not a craving love, for Laura that pos- 
sessed and inspired Petrarch, is his oft-repeated declara- 
tion that his affection for her was the means of drawing 
his affections heavenward, and that, the more he loved 
her, the more he loved his God. 

" 'Twas she inspired the tender thought of love 
Which points to heaven, and teaches to despise 
The earthly vanities that others prize : 
She gave the soul's light grace, which to the skies 
Bids thee straight onward in the right path move ; 
Whence buoyed by hope e'en now I soar to worlds above." 3 

" Lady, in your bright eyes 
Soft glancing round, I mark a holy light, 
Pointing the arduous way that heavenward lies. 

1 Wrangham's translation. 2 Wollaston's translation. 

3 Wrangham's translation. 



Inspiring Poetry. 309 

This is the beacon guides to deeds of worth, 
And urges me to seek the glorious goal : 
This bids me leave behind the vulgar throng, 
Nor can the human tongue 
Tell how those orbs divine o'er all my soul 
Exert their sweet control." x 

Nor is it in impassioned verse alone that Petrarch 
bears this testimony to the spiritual uplifting which this 
friendship gave to him. In one of his prose dialogues 
with St. Augustine, he dwells on the influence of his 
friendship for Laura. " I never loved anything that was 
base," he said ; " yea, I do not remember that I ever 
loved except the most excellent. . . . This one thing — 
whether you find my motives in gratitude or in folly — I 
will not pass over in silence. Whatever you see in me, 
be it little or much, is due to her ; nor would I ever have 
attained to this measure of name and fame, unless she 
had cherished, by those most noble influences, that very 
feeble implanting of virtues which nature had placed in 
this breast. She recalled my youthful spirit from every 
kind of baseness, and drew me back, as they say, with a 
hook, and constrained me to give heed to lofty things. 
And why not ? — since it is certain that love changes us 
into the likeness of what we love." It was twenty-one 
years after Petrarch's first meeting of her that Laura 
died, having lived a quiet and blameless life as a true 
wife and mother, — the mother of ten children, and the 
revered ideal of her friend Petrarch. With all his sorrow 
over her loss he was as truly her friend after her death 
as before; and he even felt that while still inspired by 

1 Dacre's translation. 



310 Inspiring Poetry. 

her he was in a sense nearer to her and in closer sym- 
pathy than while she was here. In a vision she appears 
to him, and speaks words of comfort, in view of his grief 
and of her memory of the constraint that was between 
them in her lifetime here. 

" 'Dear friend,' she says, 'thy pangs my soul distress ; 
But for our good I did thy homage shun ' — 
In sweetest tones that might arrest the sun." * 

And his confidence in her recognition of his friend- 
ship, as it was and is and ever must be, finds this glad 
expression : 

" Who feared me once, now knows, yet scarce believes, 
I am the same who wont her love to seek, 
Who seek it still ; where she but heard me speak, 
Or saw my face, she now my soul perceives." 2 

Petrarch had already been crowned poet laureate at 
Rome, because of what he had done and of what he 
was through the inspiration of his friendship for Laura. 
He wore his laurels gracefully for a quarter of a century 
after her death ; but he was never less her friend than 
while in the zenith of his fame in her lifetime, and his 
place in history is secure for all' time, because of what 
she was, as inspiring him to the friendship which made 
him what he was. 

"Dante and Petrarch," says Hallam, "are as it were 
the morning -stars of our modern literature." Dante 
wrought the greater master -piece of poesy; but Pe- 
trarch had larger influence over his times and the poets 
who followed him. The inspiration of each was a sacred 

1 Macgregor's translation. 2 Ibid. 



Inspiring Poetry. 311 

friendship for a pure-minded and noble-hearted woman. 
But both Dante and Petrarch felt and evidenced the 
power in their lives of the sentiment of friendship, apart 
from its exhibit in the master passion which inspired 
their highest poetry; for he who is a true friend to one, 
can be a better friend to all. 

When Dante wrote his earliest sonnet, before he had 
a poet's experience or a poet's name, young Guido 
Cavalcanti, a poet of tender heart and of appreciative 
sensibilities, recognized a brother spirit in Dante, and 
responded in sympathy to his heart-call in that sonnet. 
"Among those who replied to it," says Dante, "was he 
whom I call the first of my friends. . . . And this was, 
as it were the beginning of the friendship between him 
and me." Guido Cavalcanti is described by his con- 
temporaries as a noble knight, brave and courteous; 
wise and learned, a logician and philosopher; a gentle- 
man "singularly well spoken," and in no way lacking 
in aught that "was commendable in any man." He 
has even been called "the other eye of Florence in the 
time of Dante " (alter oculns Flo? -entice tempore Dantis). 
Dante was not yet nineteen when the impress of this 
friend's positive character was first made upon him ; and 
their close intimacy in friendship was continued for 
seventeen years. Longfellow notes the remarkable like- 
ness of one of the poems of Guido Cavalcanti to the treat- 
ment of the same subject in Dante's master-piece, and 
says : " From the similarity between this poem and the 
lines of Dante one might infer that the two friends had 
discussed the matter in conversation, and afterwards that 
each had written out their common thought." Who can 



312 Inspiring Poetry. 

doubt that such a friendship had its shaping power on 
such a mind as Dante's? Nor is it strange that Dante 
makes recognition of his indebtedness to this early guide 
of his mind, when he pictures the father of Guido as 
inquiring of him, in his journey through Hell: 

" If through this blind 
Prison thou goest by loftiness of genius, 
Where is my son? and why is he not with thee ? " 

Not to dwell on other impressing friendships of Dante, 
like those of Giotto the painter, and Ulberti the poet, it 
is to be noted that another Guido — Guido Novello da 
Polenta — had a peculiar influence over his later life-course. 
This " splendid prote6lor of learning, himself a poet, and 
the kinsman of that unfortunate Francesca whose story 
had been told by Dante with such unrivaled pathos," was 
a devoted friend of Dante, who made his home with him 
in Ravenna. Dante loved this princely friend, and was 
glad to exert his best abilities in proof of his friendship. 
Having failed to obtain an audience from the powers at 
Venice while on an embassy from his friend and patron, 
" Dante returned to Ravenna so overwhelmed with dis- 
appointment and grief, that he was seized by an illness 
which terminated fatally;" and so it was that the master- 
ful life of the great poet was begun and continued and 
ended under the inspiration of friendship. 

Petrarch also owed much to friendship apart from 
the inspiration of his regard for Laura. While yet but 
a school-boy he formed a close friendship with Guido 
Settimo, a Genoese youth of about his own age, whose 
parents, like those of Petrarch, were political exiles at 



Inspiring Poetry. 3 1 3 

Avignon. That friendship continued unbroken for more 
than fifty years, until the death of Guido as archbishop 
of Genoa; and the constant influence of Guido over 
Petrarch was in the nature of both stimulus and sym- 
pathy. Another friendship that had much to do with 
shaping the career of Petrarch was formed, when he was 
just twenty-one years old, with James Colonna, of the 
illustrious Italian family. This friend became also his 
patron, and when appointed bishop of Lombes took him 
into his episcopal residence; and afterwards the two 
friends traveled and studied together. By means of this 
friendship Petrarch was brought into intimate relations 
with Cardinal Colonna, the brother of his friend, and 
thereby his opportunities for the study of life and of liter- 
ature were promoted. So close was the friendship be- 
tween Petrarch and James Colonna that, when the latter 
died in Lombes, the former, being at Parma, was con- 
sciously impressed with a sense of his friend's death at 
the very time of its occurrence. 

Other friendships of importance were formed by Pe- 
trarch, all the way along in his career ; for he could not 
live except by loving. His latest friendship was with 
Boccaccio. It was not long after Laura's death that the 
two poets met at Florence. " Their friendship," says 
Hueffer, " seems to have been instantaneous ; a friend- 
ship at first sight, as warm and unselfish as was ever con- 
tracted by freshmen at college. Like school-boys, also, 
they at once begin telling each other their secrets ; and 
their correspondence, commenced soon after their meet- 
ing and continued almost to the last day of their lives, is 
not surpassed in literature, as regards the variety of topics 



314 Inspiring Poetry. 

touched upon, and the familiarity and perfect mutual con- 
fidence evinced in every turn of expression." Boccaccio 
also had found inspiration to poetry in his recognition of 
a high womanly ideal in one to whom he could be only 
a friend, and his praises of " Fiammetta " are an indication 
of his measurable appreciation of the better spirit of Pe- 
trarch in this direction. Boccaccio's later years were im- 
pressed more profoundly than Petrarch's by this delightful 
friendship ; and it would seem that its uplifting influence 
led Boccaccio to an entire change of life and character. 
But the chief value of its record is in its illustration of 
the truth that only he can be" a poet who knows how to 
be a friend. 

English poetry had its true beginning in Chaucer, 
whom Tennyson characterizes as 

"... The morning star of song, who made 

His music heard below ; 
Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath 

Preluded those melodious bursts that fill 
The spacious times of great Elizabeth 

With sounds that echo still." 

And the inspiration of Chaucer as a poet was that senti- 
ment of unselfish friendship, or chivalrous love, which 
made poets of Dante and Petrarch. " The secret of the 
richness and enduring character of Chaucer's work," says 
Professor Minto, " is that he had a fruitful idea ready to 
his hand, an idea which had been flowering and bearing 
fruit in the minds of two centuries. . . . Chivalrous love 
had been the presiding genius, the inspiring spirit, of 
several generations of poets and critics when Chaucer 
began to write. Open any of his works, from the " Court 



Inspiring Poetry, 315 

of Love " down to the " Canterbury Tales," and you find 
that the central idea of it is to expound this chivalrous 
sentiment, either directly by tracing its operation or 
formulating its laws, or indirectly by setting it off against 
its counterpart, the sentiment of the villain or the churl." 
The love which had Chaucer's admiration was a love that 
was in itself purity and reverence, without any admix- 
ture of selfish craving ; it was a love that took a man 
away from himself toward that which was more noble 
and more virtuous and more exalted than aught he had 
known before. It was the love that friendship is at its 
truest and best. It is of such a love, as over against a 
love that craves, that Chaucer's pure-hearted Delight 
speaks in praise, while contending with Lust, who would 
put all loves on one plane. 

" ' Nay,' quod Delite, ' love is a vertue clere, 
And from the soule his progresse holdeth he : 
Blynd appityte of lust doth often stirre, 
And that is synne : for reason lakketh there. 

For God, and saint, they love right verely 

Voide of al synne and vise : this know I wele, 

Affecion of flesh is synne truly ; 

But verray 1 love is vertue, as I fele, 

For verray love may thy freyle desire akkele 2 

For verray love is love withouten synne.' " 

We do not know enough of the early life of Chaucer 
to be sure who it was that first inspired his highest friend- 
ship ; but in view of the truth that chivalrous love was, 
in Chaucer's day, understood to be directed only toward 
a woman who was excluded from the possibility of his 

1 True. 2 Cool. 



3 1 6 Inspiring Poetry. 

possession, in order that its unselfishness might be the 
more evident, it is quite probable that his friendship for 
the Duchess of Lancaster, the first wife of John of Gaunt, 
was his earliest inspiration as a poet. It has been said 
that "Chaucer's A B C," an alphabetical prayer to the 
Virgin Mary, was composed " at the request of Blanche, 
Duchess of Lancaster, as a prayer for her private use, 
[she] being a woman in her religion very devout." It 
is certainly true that one of the earliest of Chaucer's 
poems is "The Dethe of Blaunche the Duchesse," — this 
woman to whom he was a friend while she was the wife 
of his friend. James Russell Lowell has called this trib- 
ute of friendship "one of the most beautiful portraits of 
a woman that ever was drawn ; " and such a portrait could 
have been made only by one who appreciated at the fullest 
its original, and therefore could attest his portrait with the 

assurance: 

" She was as good, so have I reste, 
As ever was Penelopee of Grece, 
Or as the noble wife Lucrece, 
That was the best, — he telleth thus 
The Romayne, Tytus Lyvyus, — 
She was as good, and no thynge lyke, 
Thogh hir stories be autentyke ; 
Algate 1 she was as trewe as she." 

"We have here," says Henry Morley, "the individual 
portrait of a gentlewoman who had been the poet's 
friend, and in whom he had seen a pattern of pure 
womanly grace and wifely worth ; " and it is in an unsel- 
fish recognition of, and joy over, such an ideal, that a 
friend might find the inspiration of a poet. 

1 However. 



Inspiring Poetry. 317 

A very early friendship of Chaucer, and a lasting one, 
was with John Gower, his senior in years and in the 
practice of the poetic art, although greatly his inferior 
in genius. Gower's spirit as a poet took him out of him- 
self in love toward others and toward God. Chaucer 
called him "the moral Gower," and Gower's morality 
was based on self-abnegating love. The honor, the affec- 
tion, and the sympathy given by Gower to Chaucer could 
not have been without their influence in a nature of such 
sensitiveness and grace and gentleness as Chaucer's. 
Each of these poets had words of affectionate praise for 
the other in his works, and to the last their intercourse 
was worthy of their place in history. The friendship of 
John of Gaunt had an important part in the life-shaping 
of Chaucer. He was both friend and patron to the poet; 
and it was through his friendship that Chaucer was sent 
to Italy, where he was brought under the inspirations of 
the work of Dante and Petrarch and Boccaccio; and 
the courtly training of Chaucer, which shows itself in 
every strain of his best verse, was an incidental result of 
John of Gaunt's affection. Some of Chaucer's choicest 
poems were written at the request of this princely friend. 
It would, indeed, seem hardly open to question that 
Chaucer was the poet he was through his conception of 
the sentiment of friendship at its highest and best, quick- 
ened by the illustrations of that sentiment in the life he 
lived. 

It was a full century and a half after Chaucer, "the 
morning star of song," had preluded the brilliant day of 
literature in the Elizabethan age, that the first streaks 
of that day's dawn showed themselves, in the poetry of 



3 1 8 Inspiring Poetry, 

Wyatt and Surrey; and it was unselfish love which made 
these poets co-workers in their goodly service to the 
world, and which inspired their highest poetic strains. 
It was as friends that they were poets, and they were 
poets of friendship. As to their place in literature, they 
have been called "the two chief lanternes of light to all 
others that have since employed their pennes upon Eng- 
lish Poesies." The same sentiment of chivalrous love 
for a pure and noble woman, apart from any hope of her 
ever belonging to him who was her loyal friend, which 
was the inspiration of Dante, of Petrarch, and of Chaucer, 
was the inspiration alike of Wyatt and of Surrey; as, 
indeed, in their day there was no possibility of any senti- 
ment being comparable with this as a means of uplifting 
and ennobling a man who had high poetic capabilities. 

In the case of Wyatt, it would seem to have been Queen 
Anne Boleyn who thus drew him out of himself toward 
that which was loveliest and best. In the case of Surrey, 
it was "Geraldine," who is supposed to have been Eliza- 
beth, a daughter of Gerald Fitz Gerald, ninth Earl of 
Kildare, a lovely girl of seven years at the time of 
Surrey's marriage, and who was married at fifteen to 
a man of sixty. The customs of the time justified the 
free expression of such a sentiment as this, and its culti- 
vation was in the direction of the purest and highest 
manhood — in the triumph of self-abnegating affection 
over selfish desire. Purity of thought and of phrase in 
the treatment of the sentiment of love, and the separa- 
tion of love from lust, are characteristics of the poetry of 
both Wyatt and Surrey beyond aught that was before 
known in English literature. 



Inspiring Poetry. 319 

Of the gain to the lover, in a pure and unrequited 
affection, Wyatt makes Love reply to his unwise com- 
plaint of its cost and pains : 

" In his young age, I took him from that art, 
That selleth words, and make a clattering knight, 
And of my wealth I gave him the delight. 
Now shames he not on me for to complain, 
That held him evermore in pleasant game, 
From his desire, that might have been his pain : 
Yet thereby alone I brought him to some frame ; 
Which now as wretchedness, he doth so blame ; 
And toward honor quickened I his wit, 
Where as a dastard else he might have sit. 
He knoweth how great Atrides, that made Troy fret ; 
And Hannibal to Rome so troublous ; 
Whom Homer honored, Achilles that great ; 
And African Scipion the famous ; 
And many other, by much honor glorious ; 
Whose fame and acts did lift them up above ; 
I did let fall in base dishonest love. 
And unto him, though he unworthy were, 
I chose the best of many a million ; 
That under sun yet never was her peer 
Of wisdom, womanhood, and of discretion ; 
And of my grace I gave her such a fashion, 
And eke such way I taught her for to teach, 
That never base thought his heart so high might reach. 
Evermore thus to content his mistress, 
That was his only frame of honesty, 
I stirred him still toward gentleness ; 
And caused him to regard fidelity ; 
Patience I taught him in adversity : 
Such virtues learned he in my great soul ; 
Whereof repenteth now the ignorant fool. 

• • • • • 

But one thing yet there is, above all other : 



^20 Inspiring Poetry. 



o 



I gave him wings, wherewith he might upfly 
To honor and fame ; and if he would to higher 
Than mortal things, above the starry sky : 
Considering the pleasure that an eye 
Might give in earth, by reason of the love ; 
What should that be that lasteth still above? " 

The gain of an unselfish love, despite its uttermost 
cost, is the glad theme of Surrey's rejoicing, even more 
than of Wyatt's. Recalling the outlay of blood and 
treasure in Troy's long siege, because of men's love for 
Helen, Surrey says: 

" Then think I thus : 'Sith such repair, 
So long time war of valiant men, 
Was all to win a lady fair, 
Shall I not learn to suffer then ? 
And think my life well spent to be, 
Serving a worthier wight than she ? ' " 

In assurance that his unswerving loyalty to this object 
of his affection is because of what she is in herself, and 
not for what she is to him, he declares : 

" Set me in high, or yet in low degree; 

In longest night, or in the shortest day ; 

In clearest sky, or where clouds thickest be ; 

In lusty youth, or when my hairs are gray : 

Set me in heaven, in earth, or else in hell, 

In hill, or dale, or in the foaming flood ; 

Thrall, or at large, alive whereso I dwell, 

Sick, or in health, in evil fame or good, 

Hers will I be ; and only with this thought 
Content myself, although my chance be nought." 

As to the profit of such loving as this, he can say: 



Inspiring Poetry. 321 

" But chiefly this I know, 
That lovers must transform into the thing beloved, 
And live, (alas ! who could believe ?) with sprite from 
life removed." 

That Surrey's love for Geraldine is a sincere friendship is 
shown in his appeal to her to show him favor as her ever- 
loyal friend: 

" The golden gift that Nature did thee give, 
To fasten friends and feed them at thy will, 
With form and favor, taught me to believe, 
How thou art made to show her greatest skill. 

Now certes Garret, 1 since all this is true, 
That from above thy gifts are thus elect, 
Do not deface them then with fancies new ; 
Nor change of minds, let not the mind infect: 
But mercy him thy friend that doth thee serve ; 
Who seeks alway thine honor to preserve." 

Like all true friendship, this love of Surrey's, being with- 
out a selfish end, is endless ; in all changes it is change- 
less. Therefore he says of his purpose in it : 

" And so determine I to serve until my breath ; 
Yea, rather die a thousand times, than once to false my faith. 
And if my feeble corpse, through weight of woful smart 
Do fail, or faint, my will it is that still she keep my heart. 
And when this carcass here to earth shall be refared, 
I do bequeath my wearied ghost to serve her afterward." 

Thus it was that a new beginning was made in English 
poetry by two poet-friends, each of whom was inspired 
to his highest flight in poetry by the ideal of a pure and 
unselfish love for that which was most admirable, and 

1 The family name of the Fitz Geralds. 
21 



322 Inspiring Poetry, 

nearest to divine, in a true woman whose best personality 
commanded his unswerving friendship. The character 
and work of these friends have put an impress on all 
English poetry to the present day, as they in turn reflected 
the character and work of the great Italian poets who 
were inspired by the same lofty sentiment. Strange, 
indeed, it is that the critics have so often questioned the 
reality of the unselfish and inspiring love of Dante for 
Beatrice, of Petrarch for Laura, of Chaucer for the 
Duchess Blanche, of Wyatt for Queen Anne Boleyn, and 
of Surrey for Geraldine. As well might it be supposed 
that a vivid picture of a gorgeous sunset were painted by 
an ever-blind artist, as that these truthful portrayals of 
pure and reverent friendship, as a master-passion of the 
poet, were the creations of fancy in minds that never 
experienced the surpassing power of such a sentiment. 

The uplifting of woman by chivalry and poetic thought, 
as worthy of man's reverent homage in a life-long friend- 
ship, proved to be her uplifting in man's esteem as wife 
and mother and sister and daughter. When it was real- 
ized that woman's highest value was in what she was, 
rather than in what she was to him who loved her, it was 
but a step to the recognition of a true woman's right to 
be thus esteemed by the man to whom she gave herself 
in the closest of family relations. Spenser, "the poet's 
poet," was first among poets to render the homage of 
friendship to his wife. Before this it had been deemed 
proper for a poet to give highest praise, in verse, only to 
some woman who could never be aught to him but his 
friend. But Spenser sounded the praises of his wife both 
for what she was in mere womanly attractiveness, and for 



Inspiring Poetry. 323 

what she was in higher womanly worth. And as Spenser 
had specifically affirmed his recognition of friendship's 
love as transcending conjugal love and kinship love, his 
unstinted praise of his wife's truest self was in the nature 
of a tribute of friendship. 

" Loe ! where she comes along with portly pace, 
Lyke Phcebe, from her chamber of the East, 
Arysing forth to run her mighty race, 
Clad all in white, that seems a virgin best. 
So well it her beseemes, that ye would weene 
Some angell she had beene. 
Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre, 
Sprinckled with perle, and perling flowres atweene, 
Doe lyke a golden mantle her attyre, 
And, being crowned with a girland greene, 
Seem lyke some mayden queene. 
Her modest eyes, abashed to behold 
So many gazers as on her do stare, 
Upon the lowly ground affixed are, 
Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold, 
But blush to heare her prayses sung so loud, — 
So farre from being proud. 
Naithless, doe ye still loud her prayses sing, 
That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring. 

But if ye saw that which no eyes can see, 
The inward beauty of her lively spright, 
Garnisht with heavenly guifts of high degree, 
Much more then would ye wonder at that sight, 
And stand astonisht lyke to those which red 1 
Medusaes mazeful hed. 

There dwells sweet Love, and constant Chastity, 
Unspotted Fayth, and comely Womanhood, 
Regard of Honour, and mild Modesty ; 

1 Saw. 



324 Inspiring Poetry. 

There Vertue raynes as queene in royal throne, 

And giveth lawes alone, 

The which the base affections doe obay, 

And yeeld theyr services unto her will ; 

Ne thought of things uncomely ever may 

Thereto approch to tempt her mind to ill. 

Had ye once seene these her celestial threasures, 

And unrevealed pleasures, 

Then would ye wonder, and her prayses sing, 

That all the woods should answer, and your eccho ring." 

It is because of this poet's uplifting an unselfish love 
above that craving love which 

" Doth not merit 
The name of love, but of disloyall lust," 

that Melissa says to him approvingly : 

" To thee are all true lovers greatly bound, 
That doest their cause so mightly defend : 
But most all wemen are they debtors found, 
That doest their bounty still so much commend." 

From his early youth to his full maturity Spenser 
owed much to the inspiration and aid of friendship, and 
he was never unmindful of his indebtedness. While a 
student at Cambridge, an intimacy of the closest and 
most affectionate kind was formed between him and two 
fellow-students, Gabriel Harvey and Edward Kirke, the 
one older and the other younger than himself. It was 
Kirke, the younger of these friends, who presented to the 
public Spenser's first work, the " Shepherd's Calendar," 
without the poet's name ; editing it, and giving an expla- 
nation of its meaning, in an introductory epistle addressed 
to Harvey. There is other evidence that Kirke " was 
deeply in Spenser's confidence as a literary coadjutor, 



Inspiring Poetry, 325 

and possibly in other ways." And Harvey, as a student 
of English verse, and as a man of warm heart and clear 
perceptions, was of real service to Spenser at a time when 
no one else could give him sympathetic aid. Dean 
Church is sure that Harvey "was a man who had influ- 
ence on Spenser's ideas and purposes, and on the direction 
of his efforts ;" and that, although he was somewhat vain 
and pedantic, " there is no want of hard-headed shrewd- 
ness in his remarks ; " moreover, that " in his rules for 
the adaptation of English words and accents to classical 
meters, he shows clearness and good sense in appre- 
hending the conditions of the problem, while Sidney and 
Spenser still appear confused and uncertain." Professor 
Minto thinks " it is clear that Spenser, who had sense 
enough not to be led astray by his eccentricities, received 
a6live and generous help from him, and probably not a 
little literary stimulus." It has been said, on the one 
hand, that Harvey did not at first appreciate the beauties 
of the " Faerie Queene," and told Spenser plainly his ob- 
jections to it. On the other hand, it has been suggested 
that we do not know the shape in which the earlier por- 
tions of this work were laid before Harvey ; and that 
perhaps the criticism it then received at the hand of this 
true friend had a part in making it what it was when 
finally it appeared in print a dozen years later. At all 
events it is evident that Spenser looked upon this poet- 
critic as his "singular good friend," to whom he could 
pledge himself as a " devoted friend during life." Spenser, 
in his pastorals, designated himself as " Colin Clout " and 
Harvey as " Hobbinol." 

Another friend from whom Spenser received inspiration 



326 Inspiring Poetry. 

was Sir Philip Sidney. "That Sidney took to him, dis- 
cussed poetry with him, introduced him at court, put 
him in the way of preferment, — are ascertained facts in 
his personal history," says Minto. It was no small 
matter to any man to be under the direct influence of 
that truest knight, that rarest embodiment of grace and 
courtesy, that wise statesman, that attractive poet, that 
lovable and fascinating personality ; and to a nature like 
Spenser's the favor and approval of such a paragon of 
human excellence must have proved a trumpet-call to a 
higher, nobler life. No wonder that Spenser could refer 
to Sidney with grateful appreciation as : 

" The hevens pride, the glory of our daies, 

• • • • • 

Who first my Muse did lift out of the flore, 
'To sing his sweet delights in lowlie laies." 

And when it is remembered that Spenser declares it to 
be the "generall end" of his greatest poem "to fashion 
a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle dis- 
cipline," who can doubt that the ideal before his mind 
was this friend Sidney, who had then no equal in this 
sphere in all the earth ? 

Finally, it was Sir Walter Raleigh who proved a friend 
indeed to Spenser. Finding the poet in Ireland, with 
only a small portion of the "Faerie Queene," completed, 
after years of work upon it, Raleigh perceived the sur- 
passing worth of that poem, and set himself to secure 
the return of its author to England in order to its pub- 
lishing. After nine years' absence from England, Spenser 
returned with his friend Raleigh, and made ready to give 
to the world his master-piece. He recognizes his in- 



Inspiring Poetry. 327 

debtedness to the friendship of Raleigh, in the intro- 
ductory letter commending to him the "Faerie Queene;" 
as also in the story of his return to England, under the 
title of "Colin Clouts Come Home Again," which he 
presents to Raleigh as in " part of paiment of the infinite 
debt" in which he acknowledges himself bounden. 

" ' One day,' quoth he, ' I sat, as was my trade, 
Under the foote of Mole, that mountaine hore, 
Keeping my sheepe amongst the cooly shade 
Of the greene alders by the Mullaes shore. 
There a straunge shepherd chaunst to find me out. 

He, sitting me beside in that same shade, 
Provoked me to plaie some pleasant fit ; 1 
And when he heard the musicke which I made, 
He found himselfe full greatly pleased at it. 

He gan to cast great lyking to my lore, 

And great dislyking to my lucklesse lot, 

That banisht had my selfe, like wight forlore, 

Into that waste, where I was quite forgot. 

The which to leave thenceforth he counseld mee. 

• • • • • 

So what with hope of good and hate of ill, 
He me perswaded forth with him to fare. 

• • • • • 

So to the sea we came.' " 

High above the highest poets towers Shakespeare, 
"the thousand-souled Shakespeare," "the most august 
of human intellects," "the greatest of all poetic geniuses 
that ever has been or ever will be." If any poet might 
have inspiration without the aid of friendship, it would 

1 Strain. 



328 Inspiring Poetry. 

seem to be this pre-eminent and unique personality ; and 
if friendship shows its mastery in a mind like Shake- 
speare's, no lesser mind could claim superiority to its 
sway. 

It has been said that no poet ever made so small dis- 
closure of himself in his poetry as this " first among all 
poets," for the very reason that "no man ever came near 
him in the creative powers of the mind." Hence it is 
that when Wordsworth suggests that the Sonnets of the 
great poet are autobiographical, and that 

" With this same key 
Shakespeare unlocked his heart," 

Browning resents the implied reflection on the poet's 
creative faculty, and responds : 

Did Shakespeare ? If so, the less Shakespeare he ! " 

And a score of eminent Shakespearean critics have insisted 
that whatever of love or friendship is apparent in the 
Sonnets is the exhibit of an ideal sentiment, rather than 
an actual one. But, wholly apart from any question of 
Shakespearean interpretation, it is a psychological truth 
beyond dispute that no man can understand his fellows 
who lives wholly within himself; and that only as a' man 
has experienced in some degree the power of any given 
sentiment or passion can he have ability to portray that 
sentiment or passion in face or words to others. He 
who never loved nor hated cannot express love or hate 
in exceptional vividness in his acting or in his writing. 
He whose soul was never stirred to its depths by a sense 
of loyalty to God or man, has no power to put in meas- 
ured numbers the measureless power of true loyalty over 



Inspiring Poetry, 329 

all the powers of the human mind. If, therefore, we find 
in Shakespeare's poems an exhibit of friendship's senti- 
ment at its highest, its extremest, and its best, we may 
be sure that Shakespeare had felt the fullest force of that 
sentiment, even though we be without a clue to those 
facts in his personal history that would identify the friend 
who drew him out of himself in that transcendent affec- 
tion. We may, indeed, perceive that truth is presented 
by the poet in the guise of fiction, but it is none the less 
a truth for that. Judging by this test, while we have no 
proof that Shakespeare ever felt the inspiration of pro-* 
found religious convictions or of intense spiritual aspira- 
tions, inasmuch as no character portrayed by him is 
under the sway of such feelings, — we have abundant 
evidence that in his thought and experience friendship 
transcends all love. 

"Two souls in one body" are pictured in "A Midsum- 
mer Night's Dream," in Helena's reminder to Hermia of 
the growth and power of their " school-days' friendship : " 

" We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, 
Have with our needles created both one flower, 
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, 
Both warbling of one song, both in one key, 
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, 
Had been incorporate. So we grew together, 
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, 
But yet an union in partition ; 
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem ; 
So with two seeming bodies, but one heart ; 
Two of the first like coats in heraldry, 
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest." 

Seeing through another's eyes as through one's own, is 



330 Inspiring Poetry, 

suggested as a test of unselfish love, in Queen Katharine's 
appeal to Henry VIII. : 

" Or which of your friends 
Have I not strove to love, although I knew 
He were mine enemy ? What friend of mine 
That had to him derived your anger, did I 
Continue in my liking ?" 

And Cassius holds before Brutus a mirror of true friend- 
ship: 

" Cassius. A friend should bear his friend's infirmities, 

But Brutus makes mine greater than they are. 

You love me not. 
Brutus. I do not like your faults. 

Cassius. A friendly eye could never see such faults." 

" The Two Gentlemen of Verona " is throughout an 
exhibit of love and friendship in their relations and con- 
flicts. Proteus is false in friendship, and therefore is 
false in love. Valentine being true in friendship is 
worthier than Proteus in all things to the end. With 
Proteus love is always selfish, and whether he seem true 
or false his main thought is ever of self. When he 
questions whether he shall be true to Julia and Valentine, 
or be false to both for love of Silvia, he argues : 

" To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn ; 
To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn ; 
To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn ; 
And even that power which gave me first my oath 
Provokes me to this threefold perjury; 
Love bade me swear and Love bids me forswear. 

• • • 

I cannot leave to love, and yet I do ; 

But there I leave to love where I should love. 



Inspiring Poetry. 331 

Julia I lose and Valentine I lose : 

If I keep them, I needs must lose myself ; 

If I lose them, thus find I by their loss 

For Valentine myself, for Julia Silvia. 

I to myself am dearer than a friend, 

For love is still most precious in itself; 

And Silvia — witness Heaven that made her fair! — 

Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope. 

I will forget that Julia is alive, 

Remembering that my love to her is dead ; 

And Valentine I'll hold an enemy, 

Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend. 

I cannot now prove constant to myself, 

Without some treachery used to Valentine." 

How different the noble-souled Valentine ! When Proteus 
has betrayed him, and the disclosure of the false friend's 
shame has brought the craven traitor to his knees crying 
for pardon, Valentine has no thought of self, nor yet of 
personal resentment, but only of the claims of his own 
pledged friendship ; and his answer to Proteus's plea of 
penitence, for seeking to win the love of Silvia by treach- 
ery, is : 

" Then I am paid ; 
And once again I do receive thee honest. 
Who by repentance is not satisfied 
Is nor of heaven nor earth, for these are pleased. 
By penitence the Eternal's wrath's appeased : 
And that my love may appear plain and free, 
All that was mine in Silvia I give thee." 

This triumph of generous friendship over selfish love 
proves a blessing to lovers as well as to friends, and all 
have reason to rejoice that Valentine was capable of such 
magnanimity through friendship. 

Thus the plays of Shakespeare give incidental illustra- 



332 Inspiring Poetry. 

tion of friendship's beauty and power; but it is in his 
matchless series of Sonnets that we have the specific 
proof of his inspiration as a poet through the force of 
this master-passion of his race. That these Sonnets are 
the expression of Shakespeare's personal feelings has, 
indeed, been questioned, as has been many another self- 
evident truth; but this is only an added wonder to their 
wonderfulness. "Were it not for the fa<5t," says Furni- 
vall, "that many critics really deserving the name of 
Shakespeare students, and not Shakespeare fools, have 
held the Sonnets to be merely dramatic, I could not have 
conceived that poems so intensely and evidently auto- 
biographic and self-revealing, poems so one with the 
spirit and inner meaning of Shakespeare's growth and 
life, could ever have been conceived to be other than 
what they are, the records of his own loves and fears." 

The real question for the critic is not whether Shake- 
speare felt the power of such a friendship, but whether 
the critic himself has had any experience of it. He 
who has felt all that which Shakespeare voices in his 
Sonnets, will not for a moment doubt that Shakespeare 
felt it. Minto recognizes this as the pith of the case when 
he says: "Friendship is not quite dead even in these 
degenerate days ; there are still people alive to whom the 
warmth of the warmest of Shakespeare's Sonnets would 
not appear an exaggeration." And Dowden has a similar 
view, when he says of the naturalness of Shakespeare's 
friendship, as seen by one who is capable of such a senti- 
ment : "That he should have given admiration and love 
without measure to a youth high born, brilliant, accom- 
plished, who singled out the player for peculiar favor, 



Inspiring Poetry, 333 

will seem wonderful only to those who keep a constant 
guard upon their affections, and to those who have no 
need to keep a guard at all." 

Who was the friend, " Mr. W. H.," to whom as their 
"onlie begetter" these Sonnets were dedicated by " T. T.," 
on their first publication, after the death of Shakespeare, 
is not positively known ; yet there is good reason for 
supposing that he was William Herbert, Earl of Pem- 
broke, a nephew of Sir Philip Sidney, to whom, in 
conjunction with his brother, as a well-known admirer 
and patron of the great poet, the First Folio of Shake- 
speare's Plays was dedicated. Fifty years ago Sir Henry 
Hallam said, in review of the claims for this identi- 
fication: "This hypothesis is not strictly proved, but 
sufficiently so, in my opinion, to demand our assent;" 
and later investigation has brought out much material 
in its confirmation. "Though the initials have proved a 
sufficient blind to the eyes of posterity," says Professor 
Minto, "I doubt whether any blind was intended or 
effected by them when they first appeared. In all proba- 
bility, the object of Shakespeare's Sonnets was perfectly 
well known to the first readers of them, and W. H. 
pointed to William Herbert as surely as T. T. pointed to 
Thomas Thorpe the bookseller." But, after all, this is a 
minor matter. The chief thing is, that Shakespeare was 
a friend to some one man, who drew him out of himself 
into such a love as only he could give ; and that these 
Sonnets are the expression of that friendship, and the 
proof of its transcendent inspiration to their author. It 
is evident from the Sonnets themselves that Shakespeare 
loved his friend without measure, that his admiration of 



334 Inspiring Poetry, 

him was unbounded, that his power of loving grew with 
its exercise, that in time of absence and of his friend's 
estrangement his love never lessened nor swerved, that 
he suffered from his friend's lack and failures as only 
such a nature as his, and in such a friendship, would 
be capable of suffering; and that he fully realized his 
own indebtedness to this friendship for that uplifting 
of his nature which would surely give immortality to 
his writings. 

No warmth of praise nor intensity of love to which he 
can give expression toward his friend seems to Shake- 
speare the equal of what the truth demands ; albeit he 
knows that posterity will not realize that fact. 

"Who will believe my verse in time to come, 
If it were filled with your most high deserts ? 
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb 
Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. 
If I could write the beauty of your eyes 
And in fresh numbers number all your graces, 
The age to come would say, ' This poet lies ; 
Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.' " 

"A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted 
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion ; 
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted 
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion ; 
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, 
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth ; 
A man in hue, all ' hues ' in his controlling, 
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth." 

" So are you to my thoughts as food to life, 
Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground ; 
And for the peace of you I hold such strife 
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found ; 



Inspiring Poetry. 335 

Now proud as an enjoyer and anon 

Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure, 

Now counting best to be with you alone, 

Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure ; 

Sometime all full with feasting on your sight 

And by and by clean starved for a look ; 

Possessing or pursuing no delight, 

Save what is had or must from you be took." 

" Who is it that says most ? which can say more 
Than this rich praise, that you alone are you?" 

" Let not my love be called idolatry, 
Nor my beloved as an idol show, 
Since all alike my songs and praises be 
To one, of one, still such, and ever so." 

This wonderful love seems fullest at its start; yet it grows 
with the passing years, and its power is greater and 
greater; so that the poet-friend can say to his friend: 

"Those lines that I before have writ do lie, 

Even those that said I could not love you dearer ; 
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why 
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer. 
But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents 
Creep in 'twixt vows and change decrees of kings, 
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents, 
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things ; 
Alas, why, fearing of time's tyranny, 
Might I not then say, ' Now I love you best,' 
When I was certain o'er incertainty, 
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest ? 
Love is a babe ; then might I not say so, 
To give full growth to that which still doth grow ?" 

But progress is the only change in this changeless love, 
despite absence and disappointment and evil-doing. He 



336 Inspiring Poetry. 

who has given himself in friendship has given himself 
for always. Even when deceived and wronged he can 
not only forgive but love on as before. 

" I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief, 
Although thou steal thee all my poverty ; 
And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief 
To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury." 

" That god forbid that made me first your slave, 
I should in thought control your times of pleasure, 
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave, 
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure ! 

Be where you list, your charter is so strong 
That you yourself may privilege your time 
To what you will ; to you it doth belong 
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime. 

I am to wait, though waiting so be hell ; 

Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well." 

" When thou shalt be disposed to set me light 
And place my merit in the eye of scorn, 
Upon thy side against myself I'll fight, 
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn. 

• • • • • 

Such is my love, to thee I so belong, 

That for thy right myself will bear all wrong." 

" Some say thy fault is youth ; some wantonness ; 
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport ; 
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less ; 
Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort." 

" O, never say that I was false of heart, 
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify. 
As easy might I from myself depart 
As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie." 



Inspiring Poetry. 337 

" Love is not love 
Which alters when it alteration finds, 
Or bends with the remover to remove. 

• • • • 

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 
If this be error and upon me proved, 
I never writ, nor no man ever loved." 

Such fidelity in love costs heart-blood; and the truer the 
friend in time of trial, the keener his suffering as a 
friend. Yet friendship like this is precious beyond its 
uttermost cost. Gleams of this truth are here and there 
in these soul-disclosing Sonnets. 

" If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, 
When other petty griefs have done their spite, 
But in the onset come ; so shall I taste 
At first the very worst of fortune's might, 

And other strains of woe, which now seem woe, 
Compared with loss of thee will not seem so." 

" But do thy worst to steal thyself away, 
For term of life thou art assured mine, 
And life no longer than thy love will stay, 
For it depends upon that love of thine. 
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs, 
When in the least of them my life hath end." 

"How like a winter hath my absence been 
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year ! 
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen ! 
What old December's bareness everywhere ! " 

''What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, 
Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within, 
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, 
Still losing when I saw myself to win ! 

22 



338 Inspiring Poetry. 

What wretched errors hath my heart committed, 

Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never ! 

How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted 

In the distraction of this madding fever ! 

O benefit of ill ! now I find true 

That better is by evil still made better ; 

And ruined love, when it is built anew, 

Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. 
So I return rebuked to my content, 
And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent." 

" For if you were by my unkindness shaken 
As I by yours, you've passed a hell of time, 
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken 
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime." 

There is inspiration to a great soul in a soul-expanding 
and soul-expending sentiment like this ; and the master- 
poet acknowledges his indebtedness to the uplifting power 
of this master-passion. 

" How can my Muse want subject to invent, 
While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse 
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent 
For every vulgar paper to rehearse ? 
O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me 
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight ; 
For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee, 
When thou thyself dost give invention light ? 
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth 
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate ; 
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth 
Eternal numbers to outlive long date. 

If my slight Muse do please these curious days, 
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise." 

" Yet be most proud of that which I compile, 
Whose influence is thine and born of thee : 



Inspiring Poetry. 339 

In others' works thou dost but mend the style, 

And arts with thy sweet graces graced be ; 
But thou art all my art, and dost advance 
As high as learning my rude ignorance." 

"Your monument shall be my gentle verse, 
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read, 
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse 
When all the breathers of this world are dead ; 

You still shall live — such virtue hath my pen — 
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths 
of men." 

" Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long 
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might ? 
Spend' st thou thy fury on some worthless song, 
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light ? 
Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem 
In gentle numbers time so idly spent ; 
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem 
And gives thy pen both skill and argument." 

Without the outgoing and uplifting force of such a 
friendship, not even such a poet as Shakespeare could 
have been the poet he was ; for only as the best that was 
in him was bettered could he attain to the better that 
was ever before him. There are signs in the very Son- 
nets themselves of the retarding influence of the social 
and moral standards of the day, and of the evil elements 
at work in the great poet's nature ; but in all, and 
through all, the outworking and upworking of this self- 
controlling friendship tend to the purifying and trans- 
figuring of the nature thus alloyed. It is not that the 
friend or his friendship is without spot or stain; but it is 
that the friend is by friendship ever bettering his best. 
And all that we can see of the progress of Shakespeare's 



340 Inspiring Poetry. 

power as a poet corresponds with what the Sonnets dis- 
close of his growth through his friendship. " Sad as it 
may be to us/' says Furnivall, "to be forced to conclude 
that shame has to be cast on the noble name we rever- 
ence, yet let us remember that it is but for a temporary 
stain on his career, and that through the knowledge 
of the human heart he gained by his own trials we 
get the intensest and most valuable records of his genius. 
It is only those who have been through the mill them- 
selves, that know how hard God's stones and the devil's 
grind." 

It was after the date of the earlier of his Sonnets, and 
after the beginning of his acquaintance with Pembroke, 
that Shakespeare wrote his master-pieces of creative 
genius, including the tragedies of Hamlet, Macbeth, 
Othello, and Lear. Reviewing the productions of this 
later period of the great poet's labors, Professor Baynes 
says appreciatively: "The typical plays of this period 
. . . embody Shakespeare's ripest experience of the 
great issues of life. In the four grand tragedies the cen- 
tral problem is a profoundly moral one. It is the supreme 
internal conflict of good and evil amongst the central 
forces and higher elements of human nature, as appealed 
to and developed by sudden and powerful temptation, 
smitten by accumulated wrongs, or plunged in over- 
whelming calamities. As the result, we learn that there 
is something infinitely more precious in life than social 
ease or worldly success — nobleness of soul, fidelity to 
truth and honor, human love and loyalty, strength and 
tenderness, and trust to the very end." And as recog- 
nizing the bearing of Shakespeare's experiences of good 



Inspiring Poetry. 341 

and ill in friendship, on this obvious progress of his in 
knowledge and power, Furnivall says : " I always ask 
that the Sonnets should be read -between the second and 
third periods [of Shakespeare's dramatic work] ; for the 
'hell of time' of which they speak is the best preparation 
for the temper of that third period, and enables us to 
understand it." It was through the gainful cost of 
friendship, with its deepest and fullest involvings, that 
Shakespeare, being the man he was, became the poet 
he was. 

In proving a general truth to be applicable in the more 
important spheres, there is carried the obvious inference 
that that truth is prevalent in the spheres of minor 
importance. Hence, when it is shown that the greatest 
poets of the ages have gained peculiar inspiration from 
friendship, it is fair to take it for granted that other poets 
have, in varying measure, been inspired through the 
same potent sentiment. It is, therefore, quite unneces- 
sary to take up the later English poets, one by one, in 
order to show that their history illustrates the power of 
the master-passion of humanity; yet it would be easy to 
gain additional evidence in this line from the life-story 
of any one of them, or of them all. 

Saintly George Herbert, whose books are made up, 
according to Richard Baxter, of " heart- work and heaven- 
work," was a living center of friendship in his day. 
Foremost among the friends who influenced him was 
Dr. John Donne, called by Dryden "the greatest wit, 
though not the greatest poet, of our [English] nation." 
Donne was the attached friend of Herbert's widowed 
mother. It was of her that he wrote : 



342 Inspiring Poetry. 

" No spring nor summer's beauty hath such grace 
As I have seen in one autumnal face. 

• • • • • 

If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame : 
Affections here take reverence's name." 

For the mother's sake Donne loved her son, and for her 
sake, and her son's, he sought to be an inspiration to 
him. Another inspiring friend of Herbert was Lord 
Bacon. They two were much together. Herbert trans- 
lated some of Bacon's works into Latin, and Bacon in 
turn dedicated his poetic renderings of the Psalms of 
David to Herbert. Bishop Lancelot Andrewes and Sir 
Henry Wotton did their part, also, as friends, in making 
Herbert what he was. 

Katherine Philips won a place as a poet by her appre- 
ciation and illustration of friendship. It was to her that 
Jeremy Taylor addressed his celebrated "Discourse on 
the Nature, Offices, and Measure of Friendship." Her 
extended correspondence with Sir Charles Cotterel was 
published, after her death, as "an admirable pattern for 
the pleasing correspondence of a virtuous friendship," 
and as showing "how an intercourse of writing between 
persons of different sexes ought to be managed with 
delight and innocence." In her closest friendships, with 
Mrs. Annie Owen and Mrs. Mary Awbrey, Mrs. Philips 
was known, after the fashion of the time, as " Orinda," 
and they, respectively, as " Lucasia " and " Rosania." 
Praised for her worth and her talent by Dryden, the 
Earl of Orrery and the Earl of Roscommon, and others 
known to fame, she was widely honored as the " Matchless 
Orinda." Abraham Cowley, whom Addison called "a 



Inspiring Poetry. 343 

mighty genius/' and who had great repute in his day, gave 
her an exalted place as a poet, and as the poet of friend- 
ship, in an ode on her death. 

" To be a princess or a queen 
Is great, but 'tis a greatness always seen ; 
The world did never but two women know 
Who, one by fraud, the other by wit, did rise 
To the two tops of spiritual dignities ; 
One female pope of old, one female poet now. 

• • ■ • 

The certain proofs of our Orinda's wit 
In her own lasting characters are writ, 
And they will long my praise of them survive. 

• • • • • 

The fame of Friendship, which so long had told 
Of three or four illustrious names of old, 
Till hoarse and weary of the tale she grew, 
Rejoices now to have got a new, 
A new and more surprising story, 
Of fair Lucasia and Orinda's glory." 

Dyce, and Cibber, and more recently Rowton, assign a 
place to Mrs. Philips as " one of the best of our female 
poets," and as a poet "celebrated for her friendship." 
She was married when only sixteen, and she was quite a 
model as wife and mother, while showing such excep- 
tional earnestness and devotion as a friend. 

It would seem that a discourse on friendship, by Mr. 
Francis Finch, whom she addresses as "the excellent 
Palsemon," aroused Mrs. Philips to a sense of this master- 
passion, and inspired her to its exercise and praise. 

" 'Twas he that rescued gasping Friendship, when 
The bell tolled for her funeral with men : 



344 Inspiring Poetry. 

'Twas he that made friends more than lovers burn, 
And then made love to sacred friendship turn. 

* • • • 

He's our original, by whom we see 

How much we fail, and what we ought to be." 

Her love for her husband, called by her "Anterior," then 

rose to friendship. In a temporary parting with him she 

wrote : 

" Thou shalt in me survey 
Thyself reflected while thou art away. 
For what some forward arts do undertake, 
The images of absent friends to make, 
And represent their actions in a glass, 
Friendship itself can only bring to pass — 
That magic which both fate and time beguiles, 
And in a moment runs a thousand miles. 
So in my breast thy picture drawn shall be, 
My Guide, Life, Object:, Friend, and Destiny : 
And none shall know, though they employ their wit, 
Which is the right Antenor, thou or it." 

To her earliest woman-friend, " Rosania," she wrote: 

" Soul of my soul, my Joy, my Crown, my Friend — 
A name which all the rest doth comprehend ; 
How happy are we now, whose souls are grown 
By an incomparable mixture, one : 
Whose well-acquainted minds are now as near 
As love, or vows, or friendship can endear ! 
I have no thought but what's to thee revealed, 
Nor thou desire that is from me concealed. 
Thy heart locks up my secrets richly set, 
And my breast is thy private cabinet. 
Thou shed'st no tear but what my moisture lent, 
And if I sigh, it is thy breath is spent. 
United thus, what horror can appear 
Worthy our sorrow, anger, or our fear ? ' ' 



Inspiring Poetry. 345 

To " Lucasia," who proved her ideal friend, " Orinda " 

multiplied poetic praises ; and, as the years passed on, 

her love for this friend gained and grew in quietness of 

strength. 

" Come, my Lucasia, since we see 

That miracles men's faith do move, 
By wonder and by prodigy, — 

To the dull angry world let's prove 
There's a religion in our love. 

• • • • 

" Our hearts are mutual victims laid, 

While they (such power in friendship lies) 
Are altars, priests, and offerings made : 

And each heart which thus kindly dies, 
Grows deathless by the sacrifice." 

"No bridegroom's nor crown-conqueror's mirth 
To mine compared can be : 
They have but pieces of this earth, 
I've all the world in thee." 

In parting for a season from Lucasia, Orinda rose to the 
supremest height of self-abnegating love, in her wish to 
be discarded or forgotten rather than be a cause of dis- 
comfort to her friend : 

" And should I thy clear fortunes interline 
With the incessant miseries of mine ? 
No, no, I never loved at such a rate 
To tie thee to the rigors of my fate. 
As from my obligations thou art free, 
Sure thou shalt be so from my injury. 
Though every other worthiness I miss, 
Yet I'll at least be generous in this. 
I'd rather perish without sigh or groan, 
Than thou shouldst be condemned to give me one ; 



346 Inspiring Poetry. 

Nay, in my soul I rather could allow 
Friendship should be a sufferer, than thou. 
Go then, since my sad heart has set thee free, 
Let all the loads and chains remain on me." 

Rarely has a poet owed more as a poet to the inspira- 
tion of friendship than Katherine Philips ; and rarely has 
a poet shown a more hearty and discriminating apprecia- 
tion of friendship than she in its poetic praises. Extolling 
love as " creation's soul," she saw in friendship the highest 
reach of love : 

" Friendship's an abstract of this noble flame, 

'Tis love refined, and purged from all its dross, 
The next to angels' love, if not the same, 

As strong as passion is, though not so gross : 
It antedates a glad eternity, 
And is a heaven in epitome. 

" Nobler than kindred, or than marriage-band, 

Because more free ; wedlock-felicity 
Itself doth only by this union stand, 

And turns to friendship, or to misery. 
Force or design matches to pass may bring, 
But friendship doth from love and honor spring. 

"Thick waters show no images of things; 

Friends are each other's mirrors, and should be 
Clearer than crystal or the mountain springs, 

And free from clouds, design, or flattery. 
For vulgar souls no part of friendship share : 
Poets and friends are born to what they are. 

" Absence doth not from friendship's right excuse. 

Them who preserve each other's heart and fame, 
Parting can ne'er divide, it may diffuse ; 

As a far stretched out river's still the same. 



Inspiring Poetry. 347 

Though presence helped them at the first to greet, 
Their souls now know without those aids to meet. 

" Constant and solid, whom no storms can shake, 
Nor death unfix, a right friend ought to be ; 

And if condemned to survive, doth make 

No second choice, but grief and memory. 

But friendship's best fate is, when it can spend 

A life, a fortune, all to serve a friend." 

Although Milton's 

" Soul was like a star, and dwelt apart," 

he could not be removed beyond the sway of personal 
friendship. From his school-days until he was returning 
from Italy, with the plans of his immortal poem already 
matured, he was in close intimacy with Charles Diodati, 
and the correspondence of these bosom-friends is proof 
of the important aid which this friendship was to Milton 
in his preparation for his life-work. It was in return for 
verses of Diodati that Milton wrote : 

"Art thou desirous to be told how well 
I love thee, and in verse ? verse cannot tell. 
For verse has bounds, and must in measure move : 
But neither bounds nor measure knows my love." 

His pastoral elegy on Diodati, Epitaphium Damonis, has 
been called " one of the noblest things that Milton has 
left us," and but for its Latin form it would have been 
more generally recognized as such. Andrew Marvel was, 
moreover, an inspiring poet-friend to this greater poet. 
Henry Lawes, a celebrated musical composer, was an 
attached friend of Milton ; and he it was who induced the 
poet to write the words of Comus for the music of a Mask, 
to be performed at Ludlow Castle. If Milton had never 



348 Inspiring Poetry, 

written aught beyond this work, which he undertook at 
the call of friendship, he would have been entitled to 
immortality. And finally Milton's " Lycidas " was a trib- 
ute to the memory of his friend and college-mate, Edward 
King. Although King had no such hold as Diodati on 
Milton's heart, the beauty of this tribute is a proof of 
the transcending power of friendship over the poet's 
intellectual nature. " This piece," says Mark Pattison, 
" unmatched in the whole range of English poetry, and 
never again equaled by Milton himself, leaves all criticism 
behind." 

It can hardly be doubted that Dryden had felt the 
sway of friendship when he put into the mouth of one of 
his characters the words : 

" I had a friend that loved me; 
I was his soul ; he lived not but in me : 
We were so closed within each other's breasts, 
The rivets were not found that joined us first, 
That do not reach us yet. We were so mixed 
As meeting streams, but to ourselves were lost. 
We were one mass ; we could not give or take 
But from the same; for he was I, I he." 

We know that Dryden greatly prized the friendship of 
Sir Robert Howard in his young manhood, and of 
William Congreve in his later years, and that he felt 
the intellectual impulse of both these friendships. " To 
his friend John Hoddeson," Dryden, while yet less than 
twenty years old, wrote : 

" Thou hast inspired me with thy soul, and I 
Who ne'er before could ken of poetry, 
Am grown so good proficient, I can lend 
A line in commendation of my friend. 



Inspiring Poetry. 349 

Yet 'tis but of the second hand ; if aught 
There be in this, 'tis from thy fancy brought. 

What would Addison have been without Steele ? " It 
was the firm hand of his friend Steele," says Henry 
Morley, "that helped Addison up to the place in litera- 
ture which became him. It was Steele who caused the 
nice critical taste, which Addison might have spent only 
in accordance with the fleeting fashions of his time, to be 
inspired with all Addison's religious earnestness. ... It 
was Steele who drew his friend toward the days to come, 
and made his gifts the wealth of a whole people." Steele 
is cited as declaring, after his friend's death, "that there 
was never a more stri6l friendship than between himself 
and Addison, nor had they ever any difference but what 
proceeded from their different way of pursuing the same 
thing;" and it is suggested that Addison had Steele in 
his mind, when his song of praise to God was : 

" Thy bounteous hand with worldly bliss 
Has made my cup run o'er, 
And in a kind and faithful friend 
Has doubled all my store." 

But for his praises of friendship Young would not 
have the place that is his in popular esteem to-day. And 
he could never have sounded these praises without ex- 
periencing the sway of the sentiment they extol. 

" Can gold gain friendship ? Impudence of hope ! 
As well mere man an angel might beget. 
Love, and love only, is the loan for love. 
Lorenzo ! pride repress ; nor hope to find 
A friend, but what has found a friend in thee. 



350 Inspiring Poetry. 

All like the purchase ; few the price will pay ; 
And this makes friends such miracles below. 

A friend is worth all hazards we can run. 
' Poor is the friendless master of a world : 
A world in purchase for a friend is gain.' " 

Pope was a man of friends. When about seventeen 
years old he formed an intimate friendship with Sir 
William Trumbull, a man of sixty; and this intimacy 
continued until the statesman's death. Trumbull intro- 
duced young Pope to Wycherly, the poet, then nearly 
seventy years of age; and in this way Pope came into 
relations of peculiar friendship with Wycherly. The old 
poet sought the counsel of his new friend in the correc- 
tion and revision of his poems, and this mission had its 
value to the young poet if not to the old one. It was 
by Trumbull's earnest counsel that Pope undertook his 
translation of the Iliad, and the aid of Pope's friend Par- 
nell was of importance in the prosecution of this work. 
Among other helpful friends of Pope were the unfortu- 
nate Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, Spence of Oxford, 
Gay, Arbuthnot, and Swift. Pope, writing to Swift of the 
possibilities of the future life, said earnestly : " We are 
to believe we shall have something better than even a 
friend there, but certainly here we have nothing so good." 
And in the closing moments of his life, after he had 
received the last sacrament from a priest, Pope said : 
" There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and 
friendship; and indeed friendship itself is only a part of 
virtue." 

Friendship certainly had its part in inspiring and shap- 
ing the poet Thomson. Mr. Riccaulton, a friend of his 



Inspiring Poetry. 351 

father, first saw possibilities in young Thomson and 
sought to develop them. He undertook the teaching 
of the lad, and he interested him in poetic writing. " We 
have the poet's own acknowledgment," says Minto, "that 
the first hint of the Seasons came from a striking dra- 
matic poem by Riccaulton, entitled A Winter's Day." 
A more intimate friend of Thomson was a classmate at 
the University of Edinburgh, David Mallet. Together 
these two friends studied and wrote, inspiring each other 
and rejoicing in each other. It was in the "Mask of 
Alfred," written conjointly by the two friends, that the 
song " Rule, Britannia," first appeared; and the authorship 
of that song has unfairly been claimed for Mallet. A 
life-long friend of Thomson was Dr. Cranston, whose 
counsel and cheer were a constant stimulus to the poet, 
as the extensive correspondence between them evidences. 

The life-story of Gray is the story of his friendships. 
Four young Etonians, Gray, Walpole, West, and Ashe- 
ton, were so closely bound as friends that they were 
known to their schoolfellows as the Quadruple Alliance. 
But West was nearest and dearest to Gray. They wrote 
verses together, and they entered into each other's lives 
in sympathy and mutual inspiration. " I singled you out 
for a friend," said West to Gray, "and I would have -you 
know me to be yours, if you deem me worthy." While 
West lived he was dear to Gray ; and when he was dead 
he was still a living force in the mind of his friend. It 
was while under the shadow of the death of West, that 
Gray composed his "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." 

Akenside ascribed his best inspirings to his friendship 
for Dyson. Writing to this friend from Leyden, Akenside 



35 2 Inspiring Poetry, 

said : " Believe me, my dear, my honored friend, I look 
upon my connection with you as the most fortunate cir- 
cumstance of my life. I never think of it without being 
happier and better for the reflection. I enjoy, by means 
of it, a more animated, a more perfect relish of every 
social, of every natural pleasure. My own character, by 
means of it, is become an object of veneration and applause 
to myself. My sense of the perfection and beauty of the 
Supreme Being is nobler and more affecting. ... It has 
the force of an additional conscience, of a new principle 
of religion ; nor do I remember one instance of moral 
good or evil offered to my choice of late, in which the 
idea of your mind and manners did not come in along 
with the essential beauty of virtue and the sanction of 
the divine laws, to guide and determine me. It has 
enlarged my knowledge of human nature, and ascer- 
tained my ideas of the economy of the universe. In 
whatever light I consider, with whatever principle or sen- 
sation I compare it, it still continues to receive strength 
from the best and highest, and in return confirm and 

enlarge them, 

Like the sweet South 

That breathes upon a bank of violets, 

Giving and stealing odors." 

It was doubtless because of this experience of the tran- 
scendent power of the master -passion, that the poet 
asked, in his searching of the Pleasures of Imagination : 

" Is aught so fair, 
In all the dewy landscapes of the Spring, 
In the bright eye of Hesper, or the morn, 
In Nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair 
As virtuous friendship?" 



Inspiring Poetry. 353 

Cowper lived by friendship, and the friendships which 
did most for him were with noble-minded and tender- 
hearted women. Mrs. Unwin, the " Mary " of the poet's 
song, was a constant inspiration to him. He lived in her 
house more than thirty years, until death's stroke came 
to her, not long before it came to him. She was a few 
years older than himself, and his reverent friendship for 
her was almost as a grown son's for a mother-friend. 
" The lady in whose house I live," he wrote, " is so excel- 
lent a person, and regards me with a friendship so truly 
Christian, that I could almost fancy my own mother 
restored to life again to compensate me for all the friends 
I have lost and all my connections broken." And, loving 
the mother, he loved her young son. " Blessed be the 
God of our salvation," he added, " for such companions, 
and for such a life ; above all, for a heart to like it." 
Cowper was nearly fifty years old when he began to write 
poetry, and he owed his promptings in this direction 
to friendship. " It was chiefly at the request of Mrs. 
Unwin," says his biographer, "that Cowper was induced 
to undertake a poetical piece of any extent. Affection 
is lynx-eyed in discovering whatever is beneficial to its 
object, and in pressing upon her friend an occupation for 
which nature had peculiarly adapted him she displayed 
considerable judgment." She suggested to him the 
Progress of Error as a theme, and so again various 
other subjects of his writing. Still later Cowper formed 
a friendship with Lady Austen, and "to her the world 
is mainly indebted for 'The Task,' 'John Gilpin,' and 
for the translation of Homer." No wonder that Cowper 
could say of the sentiment that had such power with him: 

23 



o 



54 Inspiring Poetry. 



" True friendship has, in short, a grace 
More than terrestrial in its face, 

That proves it heaven-descended : 
Man's love of woman not so pure, 
Nor, when sincerest, so secure 

To last till life is ended." 

And it was fitting that the memorial of Mary Unwin, in 
East Dereham Church, should bear this tribute to the 
power of her friendship : 

" Trusting in God with all her heart and mind, 
This woman proved magnanimously kind: 
Endured affliction's desolating hail, 
And watched a Poet through misfortune's vale. 
Her spotless dust angelic guards defend! 
It is the dust of Unwin, Cowper's friend ! 
That single title in itself is fame, 
For all who read his verse revere her name." 

Burns showed the good and the evil of friendship in 
his thinking and doing. He confessed that a friendship 
formed by him with a reckless sailor-lad at Irvine, when 
he was a little more than twenty years old, did him serious 
mischief through that friend's treatment " of lawless love 
with levity." This companion, with his wild life and 
loose and irregular habits, had a wonderful fascination 
for Burns, who admired him for what he thought his 
independence and magnanimity; and the shadow of his 
pernicious influence was on much of the life and poetry 
of Burns. Again, it was his friendship for Gavin Hamil- 
ton, " a country lawyer who had fallen under church 
censure for neglect of church ordinances," that incited 
Burns to the writing of his bitterest satires against the 
ministers and elders of his day, including "The Holy 



Inspiring Poetry. 355 

Fair" and "Holy Willie's Prayer;" while at the same 
time he was moved to show his appreciation of the truest 
and best religious life in " The Cotter's Saturday Night." 
It was Gavin Hamilton who prompted to the publication 
of the first volume of Burns's poems, which awakened a 
new demand on the poet's powers; and it was to this 
friend that Burns wrote heartily: 

" To phrase you, and praise you, 

Ye ken your Laureate scorns : 
The prayer still, you share still, 
Of grateful Minstrel Burns." 

Mrs. Dunlop of Dunlop was a warm and helpful friend 
of Burns from the time that he made her acquaintance 
in Ayrshire, when he was twenty-seven years old, until 
the close of his life. The extensive correspondence 
between these friends was concluded with a letter writ- 
ten by Burns a few days before his death. A gleam of 
Burns's estimate of friendship is found in words like 
these, to one of his friends : 

" For me, I swear by sun and moon, 
And every star that blinks aboon, 
Ye've cost me twenty pair o' shoon 

Just gaun to see you ; 
And every other pair that's done, 

Mair ta'en I'm wi' you." 

And of all the songs that Burns has given to the world, 
none has had such a hold as his song of friendship, " Auld 
Lang Syne." 

Scott was a man of too much tenderness and impres- 
sibility to be uninfluenced by his friendships. Fore- 
most among his college friends, and " probably the one 



356 Inspiring Poetry. 

who most stimulated his imagination in his youth " was 
William Clerk. While it is true, as a biographer of Scott 
suggests, that " Clerk never actually gained any other 
distinction so great as his friendship with Scott conferred 
upon him," it is also true that Clerk deserves the distinc- 
tion of winning Scott's admiration and of arousing Scott's 
purpose of being at his best. In his later years Scott 
said of Clerk : " I never met a man of greater powers, 
of more complete information on all desirable subjects." 
The record of Scott's life gives evidence that Clerk was 
a constant spur to the poet, as truly as another intimate 
friend, William Erskine, was always a comfort and cheer 
to him. Erskine loved Scott with warmth and tender- 
ness, and he had a high ideal for his friend, toward which 
he was always pointing him. " He was," says R. H. 
Hutton, " Scott's confidant in all literary matters, and his 
advice was oftener followed on all questions of style and 
form, and of literary enterprise, than that of any other 
of Scott's friends." It was to Erskine that Scott wrote, 
in defense of his minstrelsy, as better for him than the 
more classic themes suggested for him by his friend : 

" Nay, my friend, nay, — since oft thy praise 
Hath given fresh vigor to my lays ; 
Since oft thy judgment could refine 
My flattened thought or cumbrous line, 
Still kind, as is thy wont, attend, 
And in the minstrel spare the friend ! " 

And then there was that rude genius, John Leyden, full 
of poetic taste and of antiquarian zeal, " who once walked 
between forty and fifty miles and back for the sole pur- 
pose of visiting an old person who possessed a copy of 



Inspiring Poetry, 357 

a border ballad that was wanting" for the "Border Min- 
strelsy " that Scott was compiling. He was a devoted 
and inspiring friend of the poet. James Hogg and 
William Laidlow and George Ellis were other friends of 
Scott who did their part as friends in making him what 
he was. 

Byron was too passionate, too jealous, and too intensely 
absorbed in self-gratification, to be under the permanent 
sway of an unselfish friendship; although a personality 
like his must have a keen sensitiveness to the impressions 
of this master -passion. In Byron's school -days "his 
friendships were passions," and his passions were the 
inspirings of his poetry. He was only fourteen when he 
poured out his heart in strains of love toward a young 
plebeian friend, whom he honored while living and 
mourned when dead. 

" Let Folly smile, to view the names 

Of thee and me in friendship twined ; 
Yet Virtue will have greater claims 

To love than rank with vice combined." 

"O Friend ! for ever loved, for ever dear! 
What fruitless tears have bathed thy honored bier ! 
What sighs re-echoed to thy parting breath, 
Whilst thou wast struggling in the pangs of death ! 

What though thy sire lament his failing line, 
A father's sorrow cannot equal mine! 
Though none like thee his dying hour will cheer, 
Yet other offspring soothe his anguish here : 
But who with me shall hold thy former place ? 
Thine image, what new friendship can efface ? 
Ah, none ! — a father's tears will cease to flow, 
Time will assuage an infant brother's woe ; 



358 Inspiring Poetry. 

To all save one is consolation known, 
While solitary friendship sighs alone." 

At Harrow, Byron formed a friendship with young Fitz- 
gibbon, the second Earl of Clare, which had its hold 
upon him for long years afterward. " To him his con- 
fidences were most freely given, and his most affectionate 
verses addressed." Nearly twenty years later Byron 
wrote : " I never hear the word ' Clare ' without a beating 
of the heart even now;" and again, "I have always loved 
him better than any male thing in the world." It was 
at Harrow that Byron illustrated the spirit of friendship, 
when he went, in tearful helplessness and "blushing with 
rage," to ask a large-framed bully to allow him to "take 
half" of the undeserved torture that was being inflicted 
on his young friend Robert Peel. There were other early 
friendships that had their part in giving nobler impulses 
to Byron, and if he had yielded himself more trustfully 
to their swayings his poetry would have had a perma- 
nency of life that now it lacks. 

Shelley and Byron, with all their differences, had 
much in common, including undeveloped possibilities of 
high friendship. They helped each other as poet-friends. 
Byron's best work — including the third and fourth cantos 
of " Childe Harold " — was done while under the impulse 
of Shelley's friendship ; and no poems of Shelley's are 
superior to those which he wrote at this time, including 
his " Ode to the Skylark," with its recognition of an un- 
selfish affection transcendently above "love's sad satiety." 
Even as a boy Shelley was powerfully swayed by his 
intense friendship for a young schoolfellow, and again 
by the friendship of the venerable Dr. Lind, a tutor at 



Inspiring Poetry. 359 

Eton, whom the poet immortalized under the guise of 
Zonoras in his self-disclosing " Prince Athanase : " 

" Prince Athanase had one beloved friend, 
An old, old man, with hair of silver white, 
And lips where heavenly smiles would hang and blend 

" With his wise words ; and eyes whose arrowy light 
Shone like the reflex of a thousand minds. 

• • • • • 

" And sweet and subtle talk now evermore 
The pupil and the master shared ; until, 
Sharing that undiminishable store, 

" The youth, as shadows on a grassy hill 
Outrun the winds that chase them, soon outran 
His teacher, and did teach with native skill 

" Strange truths and new to that experienced man. 
Still they were friends, as few have ever been 
Who mark the extremes of life's discordant plan." 

Moreover, the friendships of Shelley with his college 
mate and subsequent companion Hogg, and yet later 
with Mr. and Mrs. Williams at Pisa, had an important 
influence on his life and writings. 

To think of Wordsworth and Coleridge is to think of 
their friendship, and none would question that the world 
owes much to what they owed to each other. First of 
all, however, Wordsworth was indebted to the inspiration 
of his sister Dorothy's friendship; for her love for him was 
the love of a friend rather than of a sister. She lived for 
him, and she showed him what to live for. " It was she 
who called forth the shyer sensibilities of his nature, and 
taught an originally harsh and austere imagination to 
surround itself with fancy and feeling, as the rock fringes 



360 Inspiring Poetry. 

itself with ferns." Her service to her brother -friend 
justified his tribute of praise to her : 

" She gave me eyes, she gave me ears, 
And humble cares, and delicate fears; 
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears, 
And love, and faith, and joy." 

Then there came Coleridge, as the friend of both Words- 
worth and his sister, at a time when Wordsworth needed 
more than his sister's service could supply to him. 
"Under his sister's genial influence," says Minto, "he 
was groping his way doubtfully out of the labyrinth of 
poetic conventions, beginning to see a new pathos and 
sublimity in human life, but not yet convinced except by 
fits and starts of the rightness of his own vision. Stub- 
born and independent as Wordsworth was, he needed 
some friendly voice from the outer world to give him 
confidence in himself. Coleridge rendered him this in- 
dispensable service." Soon Coleridge was an inmate of 
Wordsworth's home, a real friend of the two friends 
already there ; and that home of friendship contained 
"three bodies and one soul," as Wordsworth was wont 
to say. The poets thought and wrote together, and they 
inspired each other. Southey, who was already the 
intimate friend of Coleridge, also came within the sweep 
of this friendship-inspired circle of the Lake Poets; and 
the best work of all these poets was an outcome of the 
surpassing friendship that bound while it freed them, in 
their highest natures. 

It were needless to multiply these illustrations along 
the course of modern English poetry. It will suffice, in 
this field, to point to the two greatest poets of the pass- 



Inspiring Poetry. 361 

ing generation, in explicit witness to this unmistakable 
truth of the ages. 

Robert Browning's life and thought find expression in 
the truth of his impassioned ejaculation, 

"What a thing friendship is, world without end ! " 

Mrs. Sutherland Orr, telling enthusiastically of Brown- 
ing's "constancy to all degrees of friendship and love," 
says : " What he loved once he loved always, from the 
dearest man or woman to whom his allegiance had been 
given to the humblest piece of furniture which had served 
him." And it is provable that the love which swayed 
Browning most powerfully was always that unselfish and 
out-going love which friendship is. Browning was not 
yet twenty when he became the attached friend of Alfred 
Dommett, whom he never ceased to love, and whose 
love was ever an inspiration to him. Dommett was the 
"Alfred, dear friend," of Browning's "Guardian Angel," 
and the "Waring" to whom, in his absence, a poem was 
addressed under that name in " Dramatic Romances." 

" Meantime, how much I loved him, 
I find out now I've lost him. 
I who cared not if I moved him, 
Who could so carelessly accost him, 
Henceforth never shall get free 
Of his ghostly company. 

Nay, my very wrist grows warm 
With his dragging weight of arm. 

Oh ! could I have him back once more, 
This Waring, but one half-day more." 

It was at the very time when Dommett and Browning 



362 Inspiring Poetry. 

became friends, that Browning became the friend of Miss 
Lizzie Flower, who had an important part, as his friend, 
in bringing to bear in his behalf influences which aided 
in deciding his life-work ; and whose name he could 
never mention in his latest years without giving evidence 
of his loyal friendship. One of the warmest friendships 
of Browning's life was formed with Count de Ripert- 
Monclair, who first suggested to the poet the life of 
Paracelsus as a possible subject for a poem; and hence 
it was that Browning's "Paracelsus" was "dedicated, in 
fulfilment of a promise to the friend to whom its inspira- 
tion had been due." The writing of "Strafford " was an 
outcome of Browning's friendship with Macready the 
actor, as was probably also "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon." 
John Forster's friendship had its influence on Browning's 
thinking and writing; and so had more than one other 
friendship. But what were all these in comparison with 
Browning's friendship for Elizabeth Barrett ! 

It was no selfish love, but it was a love that was friend- 
ship from first to last, that Robert Browning gave to 
Elizabeth Barrett. When he first heard of her, he heard 
that she was a hopeless invalid. Injured through a fall 
from her horse when about fourteen years old, she had 
been practically shut into her room, and much of the 
time confined to her bed, for twenty-three years, when 
he was introduced to her, by his friend and hers, John 
Kenyon, — " Kenyon the Magnificent," Browning called 
him. As soon as he saw her, Browning was her friend ; 
and the thought of his life from that time onward was, 
not what she could be to him, but what he could be to 
her. And when he asked that she would be his wife, 



Inspiring Poetry. 363 

he merely sought freer opportunities of serving her, 
without any prospect of joy or gain to himself beyond 
this privilege of service. Pointing out his nobleness of 
soul in this action, Mrs. Sutherland Orr says : " No sane 
man in Mr. Browning's position could have been ignorant 
of the responsibilities he was incurring. He had, it is 
true, no experience of illness. Of its nature, its treat- 
ment, its symptoms direct and indirect, he remained 
pathetically ignorant to his dying day. He did not 
know what disqualifications for active existence might 
reside in the fragile, recumbent form, nor in the long 
years lived without change of air or scene beyond the 
passage, not always even allowed, from bed-room to 
sitting-room, from sofa to bed again. But he did know 
that Miss Barrett received him lying down, and that 
his very ignorance of her condition left him without 
security for her ever being able to stand. A strong 
sense of sympathy and pity could alone justify or explain 
the act, — a strong desire to bring sunshine into that 
darkened life. We might be sure that these motives had 
been present with him if we had no direct authority for 
believing it; and we have this authority in his own com- 
paratively recent words : ' She had so much need of care 
and protection. There was so much pity in what I felt 
for her ! ' " 

At the first proposal of Mr. Browning to call upon 
her, Miss Barrett had expressed her unwillingness to 
see or to be seen by a stranger, saying with a touch- 
ing sense of her desolateness : "There is nothing to 
see in me, nothing to hear in me. I am a weed fit for 
the ground and darkness." But the light that shines out 



364 Inspiring Poetry, 

of friendship's heaven will not be kept back from the 
ground and darkness toward which it shines. It was 
not long before these two friends were made one, in spite 
of the unwillingness of relatives and the seeming unrea- 
sonableness of their purpose. And how much the world 
owes to the inspirations of that union ! No wonder that 
her heart went out in thankfulness for the discernment 
of his unselfish love, that saw her as she was, and that 
was devoted to her because she was what she was. 

"Because thou hast the power, and own'st the grace, 
To look through and behind this mask of me, 
(Against which years have beat thus blanchingly 
With their rains) and behold my soul's true face, 
The dim and weary witness of life's race, — 
Because thou hast the faith and love to see, 
Through that same soul's distracting lethargy, 
The patient angel waiting for a place 
In the new heavens, — because nor sin nor woe, 
Nor God's infliction, nor death's neighborhood, 
Nor all which others, viewing, turn to go, . . . 
Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed, . . . 
Nothing repels thee, . . . dearest, teach me so 
To pour out gratitude as thou dost good." 

In all history there is no fitter illustration of the inspir- 
ing power of friendship to a poet than that furnished in 
the life of our still living Laureate. Tennyson's "In 
Memoriam " is in itself a refutation of the charge that 
friendship has no such potency in the Christian heart of 
to-day as it had in the heart of the classic Greek. Alfred 
Tennyson was still a young man when his bosom-friend 
Arthur Hallam, whom he "held as half- divine," was 
parted from him by death ; and for seventeen years the 



Inspiring Poetry. 365 

friendship-inspired poet and his inspiring poem of friend- 
ship made progress alike, until both were perfected. And 
all the world now knows how much the poet and the 
world owe to the poet's friendship. 

" My Arthur, whom I shall not see 

Till all my widowed race be run ; 
Dear as the mother to the son, 
More than my brothers are to me. 

• • • • 

" The path by which we twain did go, 

Which led by tracts that pleased us well, 
Through four sweet years arose and fell, 
From flower to flower, from snow to snow. 

"When each by turns was guide to each, 
And Fancy light from Fancy caught, 
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought 
Ere Thought could wed itself with speech. 

• •-••• 

" But thou art turned to something strange, 
And I have lost the links that bound 
Thy changes ; here upon the ground, 
No more partaker of thy change. 

• • • • 

" Thy spirit ere our fatal loss 

Did ever rise from high to higher ; 
As mounts the heavenward altar-fire, 
As flies the lighter through the gross. 

• •»..• 

" Dear friend, far off, my lost desire, 

So far, so near in woe and weal ; 
Oh, loved the most, when most I feel 
There is a lower and a higher ; 



366 Inspiring Poetry. 

" Known and unknown; human, divine ; 

Sweet human hand and lips and eye ; 
Dear heavenly friend that canst not die, 
Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine ; 

" Strange friend, past, present, and to be ; 
Loved deeplier, darklier understood ; 
Behold, I dream a dream of good, 
And mingle all the world with thee. 

" Thy voice is on the rolling air ; 

I hear thee where the waters run ; 
Thou standest in the rising sun, 
And in the setting thou art fair. 

" What art thou then ? I cannot guess ; 

But though I seem in star and flower 
To feel thee some diffusive power 
I do not therefore love thee less. 

" My love involves the love before ; 
My love is vaster passion now ; 
Though mixed with God and Nature thou, 
I seem to love thee more and more. 

" Far off thou art, but ever nigh ; 

I have thee still, and I rejoice ; 
I prosper, circled with thy voice ; 
I shall not lose thee though I die." 

In France, as in Italy and in England, friendship was 
an inspiration to the poets, who were the inspiration of 
the nation. A few illustrations of this truth will prove as 
effective as many. 

French modern poetry began with Pierre Corneille, the 
" Grand Corneille," as his nation calls him. Corneille 
made a new beginning for the French language, and for 
French genius. A French critic assigning him his place 
in history says : " When the Academy was endeavoring 



Inspiring Poetry, 367 

to correct the language which Pascal was destined to fix 
and Racine to polish, Corneille formed and created it by 
giving it force and precision in reasoning, energy and 
profoundness in discourse, elevation and sublimity in 
sentiment, dignity and majesty in the utterances of kings 
and heroes." And George Saintsbury says of Corneille 
that " his rank among the greatest of dramatic poets is 
not a matter of question; for a poet is to be judged by 
his best things, and the best things of Corneille are 
second to none." It was because of an unexpected 
rivalry with a friend that Corneille was turned from law 
to poetry as a life pursuit, and was prompted to the writ- 
ing of Me lite, his first dramatic piece. It was after this, 
but while he was yet but a beginner in his poetic writing, 
that Corneille formed the acquaintance and won the 
friendship of M. de Chalon, a former secretary of Marie 
de Medicis. This friend perceived Corneille's higher 
possibilities, and set himself at developing them. " The 
kind of comedy that you have hitherto written," he said, 
" can only procure for you temporary credit. You will 
find in the Spanish dramatists some subjects which, if 
they are treated after our [French] fashion and by hands 
as competent as yours, would produce a great effect. 
You should learn their language. It is not difficult. I 
will teach you what I know of it; and until you can read 
by yourself I will translate you some passages out of 
Guillen de Castro." Thus incited and guided, Corneille 
" began his study of the Spanish masters, and rewarded 
his good-natured friend by writing ' The Cid,' " a drama 
which has been characterized as "perhaps the most 
' epoch-making ' play in all literature," and which won 



368 Inspiring Poetry. 



undying fame for its author. Another friend of Pierre 
Corneille who influenced his writing was his younger 
brother Thomas, of whose ability Voltaire says : " He 
was a man of great merit and of vast learning ; and, if 
we except Racine, he was the only French author of his 
time worthy to be ranked next to his brother." Pierre 
and Thomas Corneille were bosom-friends as well as 
brothers. They married sisters, and they lived in adjoin- 
ing houses. Guizot quotes in description of them these 
lines of Ducis: 

" Their houses twain were made in one; 
With keys and purse the same was done ; 
Their wives can never have been two. 
Their wishes tallied at all times ; 
No games distinct their children knew ; 
The fathers lent each other rhymes ; 
Same wine for both the drawers drew." 

And Guizot adds : " It is said that when Peter Corneille 
was puzzled to end a verse he would undo a trap that 
opened into his brother's room, shouting : " Sans-souci, a 
rhyme ! " 

Closely following the great Corneille, in the beginnings 
of French poetic triumphs, came La Fontaine, Moliere, 
Boileau, and Racine ; and these four poets were friends 
together, and were fellow-helpers in poetry and friend- 
ship. On this latter point La Fontaine is explicit in the 
introduction to his " Psyche." These " four friends," he 
says, " who had learned to know each other on Parnas- 
sus, formed a kind of society, which I would have called 
an Academy if it had had more members." Racine he 
calls "Acanthus;" Boileau, "Aristus;" Moliere, " Ge- 



Inspiring Poetry. 369 

laste ; " himself, " Polyphilus." He tells of their passing 
their time together lovingly, inspiring and helping one 
another in their literary work, and he freely acknowledges 
his own indebtedness to these friends ; as the world has 
reason to acknowledge its indebtedness to their friend- 
ship. "A rare friendship united the [four] poets," says 
Lothheissen, a German biographer of Moliere ; yet such 
a friendship between such men is not so rare as many 
would suppose. Classifying these four poets in their 
place in the history of literature, Hallam finds that La 
Fontaine is "most popular" among French poets who 
are known to posterity, having left more "verses which, 
in the phrase of his country, have ' made their fortune,' 
and been like ready money always at hand for prompt quo- 
tation." " Moliere is, perhaps, of all French writers the 
one whom his country has most uniformly admired, and 
in whom her critics are most unwilling to acknowledge 
faults. . . . "Of Shakespeare we may justly say that he 
had the greater genius, but perhaps of Moliere that he 
has written the best comedies." " Boileau is the analogue 
of Pope in French literature." His was the earliest 
French poetry " where the style was always pure and 
elegant, where the ear was uniformly gratified." He 
improved the style of his own nation, and his influence 
was felt abroad. Racine is counted " second only to 
Virgil among all the poets," and is " next to Shakespeare 
among all the moderns." Each of these four poet-friends 
had other inspiring friendships besides the one that was 
common to them all ; but this one by itself is of suffi- 
cient prominence to indicate the transcendency of the 
master-passion in poetry, in France as elsewhere. 

24 



370 Inspiring Poetry. 

For a final illustration of the inspiring power of friend- 
ship to a poet, it will suffice to point to Goethe, who was 
not only the greatest poet of Germany, but one of the 
greatest of the world's poets. Emerson calls Goethe 
"the head and body of the German nation." Hutton 
more discriminatingly says that " next to Luther he was 
the greatest of the Germans." Professor Seeley is sure 
that " scarcely any man has been to any nation all that 
Goethe has been to Germany;" moreover, that "he is 
... a great mover of modern thought, one of the prin- 
cipal makers of modern opinion." Carlyle indicated the 
position which is claimed for Goethe by his enthusiastic 
admirers when he wrote : " Goethe is by many of his 
countrymen ranked at the side of Homer and Shake- 
speare as one of the only three men of genius that have 
ever lived." And since Carlyle's day it has been a favor- 
ite comparison to name Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and 
Goethe as the four representative poets of the ages. 
Oscar Browning sums up the more favorable estimates 
of the genius and work of Goethe in the statement: "As 
Homer concentrated in himself the spirit of antiquity, 
Dante of the middle ages, and Shakespeare of the renais- 
sance, so Goethe is the representative of the modern 
spirit, the prophet of mankind under new circumstances 
and new conditions." Yet many who admit the greatness 
of Goethe as a thinker and a poet, are unable to see in 
him any traces of that self-abnegating nature which is 
essential to the truest friendship, and they would be un- 
ready to perceive in him a friendship-inspired poet. 

Goethe, like Napoleon, had two very different sides to 
his nature, and his exceptional genius intensified the 



Inspiring Poetry. 371 

force of the opposing characteristics in his personality. 
Goethe could never be held up as an example of unswerv- 
ing devotion in friendship ; for his loves would not remain 
changeless through all changes. But Goethe's loves were 
always out-going rather than craving affections ; and so 
far he was free from selfishness in his loves and friend- 
ships. His loving was like the sun's shining, always 
outward and toward the planet immediately before it; 
but, as a change in the planet brings the sun's beams of 
light and warmth to bear on a new focal center, so the 
removal of any one object of Goethe's most unselfish 
affections would result in those affections going out 
toward a new object newly brought within their range. 
His love was not like the magnetic needle, which has 
but one object of attraction, and which will turn persist- 
ently toward that object in spite of all changes of posi- 
tion. He gave out his love unselfishly, instead of selfishly 
craving the love of another, and thus far he had the gain 
and inspiration of friendship's loving. But to whom his 
unselfish love should go out depended entirely on his 
position and circumstances for the hour ; therefore he 
was without the inspiration of a fixed center of life- 
absorbing friendship. 

Goethe could never have shown such unchanging de- 
votion to one object of affection, through absence and 
death, as Dante felt toward Beatrice, or Petrarch toward 
Laura; yet his life-story justifies his sincerity when he 
says of his life's ideal : " To be unselfish in everything, 
especially in love and friendship, was my highest pleas- 
ure, my maxim, my discipline." Hutton, whose opinion 
of Goethe is that " the conception of really living for 



37 2 Inspiring Poetry. 

another probably never occurred to him," yet recognizes 
the fact that " Goethe never became a selfish man in the 
coarse sense of the term;" and to Hutton's mind "it is 
curious to note how all Goethe's finest lyrics cluster round 
his attachments. Few things else seem ever to waken in 
him the same tones of unconscious airy melody. His 
other poetry, often exquisitely fine, has the polish of high 
art upon it, — but his lyrics seem to escape as uncon- 
sciously from the essence of the earth and air as the 
scent from the violet or the music from a bird." It was 
the friendship side of Goethe's affections that gave to 
them their inspiring poetic power. It was the fickleness 
of Goethe's sincerest affections in every change of sur- 
roundings that prevented his being as true a man as he 
was great a genius. At the best and at the worst, with 
Goethe as he was, he was profoundly indebted, as a man 
and as a poet, to the inspirations of his friendships, and 
to the inspiring influences of his friends. 

Goethe's first friendship was with his sister Cornelia, 
who was a little younger than himself. She was more 
than a sister to him, and " there were few things in the 
world so precious to him as her love and sympathy." 
In his boyhood "no one had half so much control over 
his restless and fiery spirit " as she ; and until her death 
at twenty-seven she remained " her brother's most inti- 
mate friend." It was by her persistent endeavors that 
Goethe was induced to complete his first great drama, 
Gotz von Berlichingen, when he had already long de- 
layed it. And she " was consulted at every stage of 
the work." Goethe was not yet ten when he became 
the attached friend of Count de Thorane, an officer of the 



Inspiring Poetry. 2>73 

French army quartered at his father's house during the 
Seven Years' War. This friendship had its impress upon 
his tastes and opinions throughout his life. Another 
friendship of his boyhood that was a fa6lor in his life's 
being was with the Fraulein von Klettenberg, a Moravian 
sister of saintly character, who was his mother's friend 
as well as his own. Her influence over him was very 
positive, and for a time pervading. It was never wholly 
lost to him. Her lovely character is pictured by Goethe 
in the Confessions of a Beautiful Soul, in " Wilhelm 
Meister." Fraulein von Klettenberg was a poet as well 
as a saint, and she inspired Goethe to poetry as well as 
to religious aspirations. " Moved by her influence, he 
wrote a series of Religious Odes, after the fashion of 
that day," and through her friendship he was led to 
earnest thought on the profoundest questions of human 
life and destiny. Then there came Goethe's peculiar 
attachment to Gretchen, a lovely girl several years his 
senior, — he being not yet fifteen. It has been said of 
Goethe's feeling toward Gretchen, that " he worshiped 
her as Dante worshiped Beatrice ; " yet when Goethe 
found that he was viewed by Gretchen as a good little 
boy instead of as a reverent worshiper he ceased his 
devotions, as Dante would have been incapable of doing. 
The inspirations of this pure friendship were, however, 
always in the heart of Goethe ; and her name and mem- 
ory are embalmed in his greatest poem. 

Goethe's university life at Leipsic pivoted on his friend- 
ships. Among his earlier friends there were Schlosser and 
Behrisch. Schlosser was ten years older than Goethe, but 
they became warm friends, and Schlosser afterwards mar- 



374 Inspiring Poetry. 

ried Goethe's sister. He introduced Goethe into a new 
world of German, French, English, and Italian poetry, and 
had his part in the shaping of Goethe's habits of poetic 
thought. Behrisch was tutor to the young Count Lin- 
denau. He also was much older than Goethe, to whom 
he became warmly attached. Behrisch had such interest 
in the poems of Goethe that he always copied them out 
for him in a neat and careful hand. " He probably had 
a considerable effect in producing the simplicity and 
naturalness of Goethe's earlier style." For the time 
being, certainly, Goethe was unselfishly the devoted 
friend of Behrisch ; and when the latter must leave Ger- 
many, in consequence of personal troubles, his poet- 
friend was inspired to the expression of the most self- 
forgetful reach of friendship : 

" Death 'tis to part; 
'Tis threefold death 
To part, not hoping 
Ever to meet again. 

" Thou wouldst rejoice to leave 
This hated land behind, 
Wert thou not chained to me 
With friendship's flowery chains. 

" Burst them, I'll not repine. 
No noble friend 
Would stay his fellow-captive, 
If means of flight appear. 

" The remembrance 
Of his dear friend's freedom 
Gives him freedom 
In his dungeon." 1 

1 E. A. Bowring's translation. 



Inspiring Poetry, 375 

For more than forty years Goethe and Behrisch kept up 
a close and affectionate correspondence, however far 
separated ; and they were friends until parted by death. 

It was while studying law at Strasburg, after his course 
at Leipsic, that Goethe entered into a friendship with 
Herder, that was of great importance to his intellectual 
career. Herder brought Goethe to a new understanding 
of Shakespeare, and introduced him to the more enthu- 
siastic study of both Greek and English poetry, the 
results of which were afterwards manifest in some of the 
choicest work of Goethe. "Thanks to the influences 
under which he was brought by Herder, Goethe," says 
James Sime, " during his residence at Strasburg, experi- 
enced a great intellectual awakening. . . . He had met 
Herder at the very moment when he needed and was 
capable of responding to the stimulus of an original mind 
at a stage of development more advanced than his own." 
Oscar Browning thinks that it was through the influence 
of his friend Herder that " Goethe's spirit was liberated 
from its trammels, and ' Gotz ' and ' Wilhelm Meister ' 
became possible to his mind." The friendship thus 
begun continued unbroken for more than twenty years. 
It originated in Goethe's unselfish attention to Herder 
when the latter was suffering from an affection of the 
eyes, and it was finally clouded by the selfish moroseness 
of Herder in the later years of his life. On his return to 
Frankfort from Strasburg, Goethe gained another friend 
in Merck, an army paymaster, then just entering on the 
editorship of a new literary review. This friendship also 
was fruitful in results to Goethe. It has been said that 
while " Goethe had dominated over all his other friends, 



37 '6 Inspiring Poetry. 

Merck dominated over him." Goethe attached himself 
to Merck's review, and freely consulted Merck as to his 
own writings outside of this. Merck printed Goethe's 
first drama, after giving it his approval. The friendly 
criticisms of Merck were of real service to Goethe, and 
his fidelity never wavered. It was certain qualities of 
Merck that suggested the character of Mephistopheles 
to Goethe; but Goethe realized the better characteristics 
of his friend. Because of Merck's being cynical rather 
than enthusiastic, peculiar value attaches to his praise of 
Goethe, when, after six years of their intimate friendship, 
he wrote, during a visit to his friend at Weimar : " Goethe 
directs everything, and every one is pleased with him, 
for he serves many and hurts none. Who can resist the 
unselfishness of the man ? " At every turn in his life 
Goethe formed a new friendship, or it might be said that 
every friendship formed by Goethe made a new turn in 
his life. He was yet but twenty-five when he won the 
friendship of young Karl August, the reigning Duke of 
Saxe- Weimar, then just seventeen — a friendship that con- 
tinued without wavering for more than fifty years, and 
that potentially shaped Goethe's life destiny. 

Karl August invited Goethe to make his home with 
him at Weimar, and the acceptance of that invitation 
gave immortality to what had before been an insig- 
nificant duchy. To Goethe, says Longfellow, this was 
" a circumstance that fixed his career and destiny." 
Friendship was Goethe's life at Weimar, and Goethe's 
life at Weimar was the life that the world knows best, 
and that enabled him to do most for the world. " From 
the moment of his arrival he became the inseparable 



Inspiring Poetry. 2>77 

and indispensable companion of the grand-duke. . . . 
Goethe and the duke dined together and bathed to- 
gether ; the duke addressed his friend by the familiar 
thou. Goethe slept in his chamber and attended him 
when ill." In order to bind Goethe more closely to 
Weimar, Karl August gave him a seat and voice in the 
privy council. Announcing this appointment to the 
poet's father, Karl August added : " Goethe can have 
but one position — that of my friend ; all others are be- 
neath him." The poets Wieland and Herder, already 
friends of Goethe, were with him at Weimar. The 
opportunities and incitements given to Goethe by the life 
at Weimar, as a result of the grand-duke's friendship, 
found their issue in much of his best intellectual work. 
It was there, also, that he formed his life-shaping friend- 
ship with Charlotte von Stein, wife of the master of the 
horse. She was then thirty-three years old, some six 
years older than Goethe. She had been married eleven 
years, and was the mother of seven children. At once 
she won the admiration and confidence of Goethe, and 
from first to last she drew out his best impulses and 
aspirations. They became the best of friends. With 
her husband also Goethe was on excellent terms. " He 
was a sensible, practical person, who did not interfere 
with his wife's friendships ; and the idea that there was 
any reason why he should be jealous of Goethe seems 
never to have entered his mind." The influence of this 
friendship on the character and tastes of Goethe was 
most important. 

Wilhelm Scherer, in his " History of German Liter- 
ature," says on this point : " Goethe's relation to Frau 



37 & Inspiring Poetry. 

von Stein developed the tenderest side of his nature. 
She was open and sincere, not passionate, not enthu- 
siastic, but full of intellectual ardor ; a gentle seriousness 
dignified her demeanor ; a pure sound judgment, united 
with a noble thirst for knowledge, rendered her capable 
of sharing all Goethe's poetic, scientific, and human in- 
terests. . . . The moral and religious forces of his nature 
were strengthened and elevated by Frau von Stein. 
Purity is the name he has for that nobler inward life 
which she awakened in him, and in which he seemed to 
rise more and more to the passionless wisdom of Spinoza. 
. . . His poetry, too, became at this time a mirror of 
purity." This friendship of Goethe with Frau von Stein 
was so close for ten years that " he made her acquainted 
with every action, every thought of his mind, all the 
working of his brain;" and although it was interrupted, 
and its tenor somewhat changed, by his absence in Italy, 
the two were friends for fifty years, and she is said to 
have had more than a thousand letters from him. Lewes 
characterizes this friendship of Goethe's as "a silver 
thread woven among the many-colored threads which 
formed the tapestry of his life ; " and he calls attention 
to the fact that Goethe, under the impulse of this affec- 
tion for Frau von Stein, finds himself aroused to an 
"ambition to do something which will make him worthy 
of her." Goethe's friendship with the mother showed 
itself in his friendship for her son Fritz, who by her con- 
sent lived with him for a time, and accompanied him in 
travel. "It was a constant delight to him to have the 
boy's companionship, to direct his education, and to 
watch the gradual unfolding of his mind and character." 



Inspiring Poetry. 379 

These friendships, among others, were shaping factors 
in the life of Goethe while his mind and character were 
developing to maturity. He was about forty-five years 
old when he formed the friendship with Schiller that 
was so potent a force in the more prolific years of his 
intellectual activity. Schiller was ten years younger 
than Goethe. Although they had met on several occa- 
sions before, it was not until Schiller visited Goethe and 
passed a fortnight with him, in the autumn of 1794, that 
they were drawn together in sympathy and friendship. 
Then, however, "each gave his heart to the other with- 
out reserve, and to the end of Schiller's life nothing was 
permitted to stand in the way of their mutual love and 
confidence." 

" The history of literature," says Lewes, " presents 
nothing comparable to the friendship of Goethe and 
Schiller. The friendship of Montaigne and Etienne de 
la Boetie was, perhaps, more passionate and entire ; but 
it was the union of two kindred natures, which from the 
first moment discovered their affinity, not the union of 
two rivals incessantly contrasted by partisans, and origi- 
nally disposed to hold aloof from each other. Rivals 
Goethe and Schiller were and are; natures in many 
respects directly antagonistic ; chiefs of opposing camps, 
and brought into brotherly union only by what was 
highest in their natures and aims. . . . Goethe had much 
to give, which Schiller gratefully accepted; and if he 
could not in return influence the developed mind of his 
great friend, nor add to the vast stores of its knowledge 
and experience, he could give him that which was even 
more valuable, sympathy and impulse. He excited Goethe 



380 Inspiring Poetry. 

to work. He withdrew him from the engrossing pursuit 
of science, and restored him once more to poetry. He 
urged him to finish what was already commenced, and 
not to leave his works all fragments. They worked to- 
gether with the same purpose and the same earnestness, 
and their union is the most glorious episode in the lives 
of both, and remains as an external exemplar of a noble 
friendship." 

The completion of " Wilhelm Meister " by Goethe was 
the first fruit of Schiller's friendship. Then there came 
" Hermann and Dorothea." After this there were Ballads 
written by the two friends, each in his own way as influ- 
enced by the other ; and their Xenien, a series of sharply 
pointed epigrams, whose keen criticism of current art and 
literature had large influence for good, were written and 
published by them conjointly. And there was new work 
done by Goethe on the long-planned "Faust." Mean- 
while Schiller was growing through the inspirations of 
this friendship, and his best poems were written. The 
co-work of the two friends was continued for ten years, 
until the death of Schiller. After this Goethe worked 
on, to the close of his life, under the impellings which he 
had received from friendship. " Since that time Schiller 
and Goethe have been inseparable in the minds of their 
countrymen, and have reigned as twin stars in the literary 
firmament." Their statues stand together on one pedes- 
tal, their hands clasped in friendship, on the public square 
of Weimar. And so Goethe, as one of the world's great- 
est poets, is an illustration of what the poets, all the world 
over, have owed as poets to the inspirations of friend- 
ship. 



TRANSFIGURING ALL LIFE. 




INCE the world began, unselfish love has 
been the highest outreach of the human 
heart and the heart's richest blessing. To 
be loved unselfishly, to be loved for one's 
own sake, and to be sure of such a love 
in spite of all lack or failure on one's own part, is a cause 
of unfailing joy to the gladdest soul or to the saddest 
A consciousness of such a love has uplifted the lowliest 
peasant to a height that no throne of earth could secure 
to its possessor ; and it has been more to the occupant 
of the loftiest throne than all his royal treasures and pre- 
rogatives. It has nerved the cowardly to a6ls of heroism, 
and has given added grace to the heroic daring of the 
bravest. It has won the evil-minded to a life of good- 
ness, and, has brought the purest-hearted to a holier con- 
secration of himself and all his powers to God. It has 
enabled the sufferer to endure, and the hopeless to hope. 
It has brought light into the gloom of the despairing, 
and has given to the sorrowing a foretaste of heavenly 

381 



382 Transfiguring All Life. 

joys. This transfiguring power of a sense of being loved 
unselfishly it is that Elizabeth Barrett bore testimony to, 
while she still felt that it was her duty to refuse as a lover 
him of whom she would be always sure as a friend : 

" Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand 
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore 
Alone upon the threshold of my door 
Of individual life, I shall command 
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand 
Serenely in the sunshine as before, 
Without the sense of that which I forbore, — 
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land 
Doom takes to part us leaves thy heart in mine 
With pulses that beat double. What I do 
And what I dream include thee, as the wine 
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue 
God for myself, he hears that name of thine, 
And sees within my eyes the tears of two. 

" The face of all the world is changed, I think, 
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul 
Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole 
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink 
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink, 
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole 
Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole 
God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink, 
And praise its sweetness, sweet, with thee anear. 
The names of country, heaven, are changed away 
For where thou art or shalt be, there or here ; 
And this . . . this lute and song . . . loved yesterday, 
(The singing angels know) are only dear 
Because thy name moves right in what they say." 

It is good to have a friend, but it is better to be a 
friend. The gain of being unselfishly loved and sympa- 



Transfiguring All Life, 383 

thized with and helped and cheered is not to be compared 
with the gain of unselfishly loving and sympathizing 
with and helping and cheering another. No glad incom- 
ing to one's heart from without can uplift and enlarge it 
like the expansive force of a generous and self-forgetting 
love outworking from within. Not only is it more glori- 
ous to be a central sun than to absorb a measure of the 
sun's light and warmth, but the soul, which is more than 
a sun, is made newly glorious in an inspired endeavor to 
reach with its out-sent beams an object that has called 
forth a reverent purpose of praise and homage and ser- 
vice unknown to it before. He who has a pure and un- 
selfish love for any one being in the universe, has thereby 
a new life, new powers, new possibilities, and new percep- 
tions of all ; and the very universe itself is a new universe 
to him, as viewed from his new center of love and light. 
Thus it was that Dante experienced the transfiguring 
power of his unselfish love at every fresh sight of her to 
whom he was a true friend, when he bore witness to the 
marvelous effects of such a vision : " There no longer 
remained to me an enemy; nay, a flame of charity pos- 
sessed me which made me pardon every one who had 
done me wrong ; and had any one at that time questioned 
me of anything, my only answer would have been ' Love,' 
and my face would have been clothed with humility." 
And Emerson gives like assurance of his gain through 
friendship, in its transfiguring light over all that he sees, 
and over himself as the seer : 

" O friend, my bosom said, 
Through thee alone the sky is arched, 
Through thee the rose is red ; 



n 



84 Transfiguring All Life. 



All things through thee take nobler form, 

And look beyond the earth ; 

The mill-round of our fate appears 

A sun-path in thy worth. 

Me too thy nobleness has taught 

To master my despair ; 

The fountains of my hidden life 

Are through thy friendship fair." 

To be loved unselfishly is a blessing. To love unsel- 
fishly is a greater blessing. A union in a love that is 
reciprocally unselfish is the greatest blessing of all. 
When he who loves unselfishly is unselfishly loved by 
the object: of his affection, so that each of the two loses 
himself, and finds more than himself, in the other, life 
seems to be all that life can be here, and to have promise 
of more than all that can here be gained. So far from 
such an unselfish union of souls making either soul selfish 
in its satisfaction with itself or with the other, its inspira- 
tions are sure to cause ceaseless and unsatisfied, though 
ever hopeful, aspirations after that which it newly opens 
to view, and toward which it impels. Thus Michael 
Angelo, with all his extraordinary power of perceiving 
truth and beauty, confesses to new visions of loveliness in 
the realms of mind and matter, in the added light from 
the eyes of his young friend, Tommaso de' Cavalieri : 

" Through thee I catch a gleam of tender glow, 
Which with mine own eyes I had failed to see ; 
And walking upward, step by step with thee, 
The once oppressive burdens lighter grow. 
With thee my groveling thoughts I heavenward raise 
Borne upward by thy bold aspiring wing ; 
I follow where thou wilt, — a helpless thing, 



Transfiguring All Life. 385 

Cold in the sun and warm in winter days. 
My will, my friend, rests only upon thine ; 
Thy heart must every thought of mine supply ; 
My mind expression finds in thee alone, 
Thus like the moonlight's silver ray I shine. 
We only see her beams on the far sky, 
When the sun's fiery rays are o'er her thrown." * 

And it is of this transforming influence of a merging of 
soul with soul in unselfish and aspiring love, that Schiller 
tells in his address to his friend Korner as "Raphael: " 

" Did not the same strong mainspring urge and guide 
Our hearts to meet in love's eternal bond? 
Linked to thine arm, O Raphael, by thy side 
Might I aspire to reach to souls beyond 
Our earth, and bid the bright ambition go 
To that perfection which the angels know ! 

" Happy, oh, happy — I have found thee ; I 
Have out of millions found thee, and embraced ; 
Thou, out of millions, mine ! — Let earth and sky 
Return to darkness and the antique waste ; 
To chaos shocked, let warring atoms be, — 
Still shall each heart unto the other flee. 

" Do I not find within thy radiant eyes 
Fairer reflections of all joys most fair ? 
In thee I marvel at myself. The dyes 
Of lovely earth seem lovelier painted there, 
And in the bright looks of the friend is given 
A heavenlier mirror even of the Heaven ! " 2 

Friendship-love, as a love that is unselfish, uncraving, 
ever out-going, and ever on-going, is in its very nature 
divine love. It is such a love as God gives, and as man 

1 J. A. Symonds's translation. 2 Bulwer's translation. 

25 



386 Transfiguring All Life. 

ought to give to God. It is such a love as man should 
give to his fellow-man for God's sake. " If ye love them 
that love you, what thank have ye?" asks our Lord; 
"for even sinners love those that love them." A love or 
a friendship that is conditioned on an equivalent return is 
not friendship-love, except in name. That love which is 
represented to us in the Bible as of God, and from God, 
and due toward God and toward those who are God's, is 
friendship-love — the purest and best of loves. 

It is agape, a "love without desire" or craving, not 
philia, a love which goes out "longingly" for the pos- 
session of its object, that seems to be recognized in Bible 
usage as friendship-love, and that would be better thus 
translated. 1 " Friendship-love is of God; and every one 
that [thus] loveth is begotten of God and knoweth God." 
" God is friendship-love ; and he that abideth in friend- 
ship-love abideth in God, and God abideth in him." 

The closest attainable union of man with God is a 
union in friendship -love, — such a union as God prof- 
fered to his loved friend Abraham, and as is a possi- 
bility, through the Friend of friends, to every one who 
by faith is a child of faithful Abraham. The divinest 
exhibit of God-likeness in man is in this friendship-love, 
of which the Apostle Paul sounds the praises so glow- 
ingly : " If I speak with the tongues of men and of 
angels, but have not friendship-love, I am become sound- 
ing brass or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift 
of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; 
and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but 
have not friendship-love, I am nothing. And if I bestow 

1 See Excursus, p. 389 f. 



Trans figuring All Life. 387 

all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to 
be burned, but have not friendship-love, it proflteth me 
nothing. Friendship-love suffereth long, and is kind ; 
friendship-love envieth not ; friendship-love vaunteth not 
itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly; 
seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account 
of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth 
with the truth ; beareth all things, believeth all things, 
hopeth all things, endureth all things. Friendship -love 
never faileth : but whether there be prophecies, they shall 
be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; 
whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. . . . 
But now abideth faith, hope, friendship-love, these three ; 
and the greatest of these is friendship-love." 




EXCURSUS 

ON THE NEW TESTAMENT WORDS FOR "LOVE" 
AND "FRIENDSHIP-LOVE." 



Failing to perceive clearly the distinction between a 
love that instinctively grows out of a relationship, or 
that is based upon a natural desire for possession, and 
a voluntary and distinguishing love that goes out un- 
selfishly and admiringly toward its chosen object, New 
Testament critics and commentators generally have been 
confused in their minds, while seeking to account for the 
apparent difference between the two words — philia and 
agape — employed in the sacred text for the designation 
of " love." It is practically admitted by all that philia 
was a word in common use, in New Testament times, as 
expressive of the love between parents and children, and 
brothers and sisters, and also of craving love between the 
sexes. It is also admitted that the word agape comes 
into a new prominence in New Testament use, as applica- 
ble to man's love to God and to love that is otherwise 
peculiarly pure and sacred. But these two words seem 
at times to be employed interchangeably; and many an 
eminent scholar has confessed his inability to see the real 
difference between the words in their using, as account- 
ing for the often indicated superiority of agape, in spite 
of the greater warmth and intensity of philia. 

389 



390 Excursus. 



Cremer, in his " Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New 
Testament Greek," covers the important facts in the case 
when he says : " We find agape used to designate a love 
unknown to writers outside of the New Testament, — love 
in its fullest conceivable form ; love as it is the distinguish- 
ing attribute, not of humanity, but, in the strictest sense, 
of Divinity." Trench, in seeking to differentiate the mean- 
ing of the two words agape and philia y says : " The first 
expresses a more reasoning attachment, of choice and 
selection (diligere = deligere), from seeing in the object 
upon whom it is bestowed that which is worthy of regard ; 
. . . while the second, without being necessarily an un- 
reasoning attachment, does yet oftentimes give less ac- 
count of itself to itself ; is more instinctive, is more of 
the feelings, implies more passion." Woolsey, after an 
exhaustive study of the history of the two terms, says of 
Trench's definition : " We believe that this is a true state- 
ment of the difference between the two words and notions." 
And all this is in confirmation of the claim made in this 
volume that philia represents a love that grows out of 
relationship or craving, while agape represents a love 
that goes out voluntarily without any intermingling of 
selfishness, — the one being ordinary love, and the other 
the higher form of friendship-love. 

As has been already stated (page 17, ante), the San- 
skrit makes a similar distinction to this, in its use of 
lubh = " covetousness " or " greed " for " love," as over 
against pri= u unselfish love" for "friendship." And 
there are other reasons for believing that there were many 
outreachings of the human heart, all the world over, in 
the direction of an unselfish friendship-love, as nobler 



Excursus. 391 



and purer than a love that craves, before the truth con- 
cerning it was brought out in explicitness in New Testa- 
ment revelations. 

Men are said to love, or crave (philein), " the chief place 
at feasts " (Matt. 23 : 6), and "salutations in the market- 
places" (Luke 20 : 46), and to have this self-interested 
love (philein), as growing out of relationship, for " father 
or mother," or for "son or daughter" (Matt. 10 : 37). On 
the other hand, the Roman centurion is said by the Jews 
to have had an unselfish friendship-love (agapdii) for 
their nation, as evidenced by his building for them a 
synagogue (Luke 7 : 5). God's children are commanded 
to have friendship-love {agapdn) for their " neighbors " 
(Matt. 5 : 43 ; Gal. 5 : 14), and for their "enemies" (Matt. 
5 : 44), because love does not go out in those directions 
instinctively, but must be given unselfishly, and of de- 
liberate choice. Yet the saints are enjoined to have a 
feeling of family love (philein) for their Lord (1 Cor. 
16 : 22) and for one another in the household of faith 
(Titus 3 : 15). "The world" is said to give a selfish, 
interested love (philein) to "its own," because of the 
mutual relation between the two (John 15 : 19). But 
Jesus is said to give a pure and unselfish friendship-love 
{agapdn) to Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus, 
in the home so dear to him at Bethany (John 11 15). 
God is said to be moved by unselfish friendship-love 
(agapdn) toward the world, in the gift of his Son (John 3 : 
16). But Jesus says that the Father loves as with a feel- 
ing of family-love (philein) those who have come into his 
inner family circle through love for his Son (John 16 : 
27). And many another passage seems to recognize and 



39 2 Excursus. 



accentuate these distinctions in the force of the two 
words severally. 

A striking illustration of the significant uses of the 
two words in the same conversation is found in the nar- 
rative of the interview of Jesus with Peter, on the shore 
of the Sea of Galilee, after the Resurrection (John 21 : 
15-19). Jesus asks Peter if he gives him friendship-love 
(agapan) more truly than the other disciples, as Peter had 
asserted that he was ready to do. Peter, remembering 
his denial of his Lord, replies that Jesus knows that he 
gives him longing love {phileiri). The second time Jesus 
asks Peter if he can claim to give him any measure of 
friendship-love {agapan) apart from all comparison with 
others. Again Peter affirms that the Lord knows that 
he gives him a longing love {philein). Then Jesus 
changes his form of question, and asks Peter if he is 
sure that he gives him even a longing love {phileht). At 
this Peter is "grieved" (not because the question is re- 
peated the third time, but because in its third putting 
it seems to imply a doubt whether Peter has any love 
for his Lord even on the lower plane) ; and his earnest 
answer is, " Lord, thou knowest all things ; thou knowest 
that I love thee" — with a longing love (philein)) and 
Jesus quietly goes on to say that he would have Peter 
bear himself towards his dear ones just as he would if he 
were his devoted friend above all the other disciples. 
Thus the way is opened for Jesus to tell Peter plainly of 
what is in store for him in his faithful service. 

Trench just misses the meaning of this narrative, 
through not perceiving the transcendency of friendship- 
love in comparison with longing-love, or relationship- 



Excursus. 393 



love. Luthardt comes nearer to the meaning, but with- 
out recognizing the true distinction between the two 
kinds of love. Meyer, again, falls short of an appre- 
hension of the reason for the change in the forms of 
question and answer in this conversation. Only in the 
light of the distinction here pointed out is the full force 
of Divine love to be comprehended in the teachings of 
the New Testament. 



INDEX. 



INDEX. 



Abb£, Browning's, instanced, 97. 
Aboo Bekr and Muhammad, 106, 184- 

189. 
Abraham, the friend of God, 29, 48 f., 

175- 

Absence no bar to friendship, 60 f., 

346 f. 
Abydos, inscription at, 123. 
Academy, the, at Athens : its origin, 

2 55- 

Achates and ^Eneas, 156, 161. 

Achilles and Patroclus, 156 f., 285. 

Actium, naval battle at, 130. 

Adams, C. F. : cited, 240 f. 

Adams, John : his action concerning 
Hamilton, 247. 

Addison, Joseph : a friend of Berke- 
ley, 276 ; cited, 342 f. ; as poet and 
friend, 349. 

Aeger, Henry, and Gerhard Groot, 
199. 

^Eneas and Achates, 156, 161. 

Africa, South: its folk-lore tales of 
friendship, 84. 

Africanus : his friendship for Laelius, 
21. 

Agamemnon and Achilles, estranged 
through lust, 284. 

Agape, the Bible word for friendship- 
love, 17, 386, 389 f. 

Agrippa and Augustus Csesar, 128-131. 

Ahithophel, a friend of David, 125. 

Akbar Muhammad and Shaykh Solay- 
man, 153 f. 

X Kempis, Thomas: his friendships, 
199-202. 

Akenside, Mark, as friend and poet, 
3Si f. 

Akim and Alyosha, 164. 

Alcaeus : cited, 233. 

Alcuin and Charlemagne, 132 f. 

Alden, John, as a friend, 56. 



Alexander and Hephsestion, 106, 126- 

128. 
Alexander, Bishop, andOrigen, 177 f. 
Alexander the Great: his trust of a 

friend, 42; his friendships, 126-128, 

257- 
"Alfred, Mask of," a product of friend- 
ship, 351. 
Alger, W. R. : his translation from 

Jamee, 22; his "Friendships of 

Women," no. 
Alison, Sir Archibald : cited, 146. 
"All for Love," Dryden's, 95. 
Alliance, The Quadruple, at Eton, 351. 
Alyosha Popovich and Akim Ivano- 

vich, 164. 
Alypius and Augustine, 183 f. 
Ambrose, St., and Monica, 108. 
Ambrose of Alexandria, and Origen, 

179. 
American Board of Commissioners for 

Foreign Missions: its origin, 227 ff. 
American Independence, promoted 

by friendship, 239-247. 
American Indians, friendship among, 

71 f. 
Ames, Fisher: cited, 240. 
Amitsi, wife of Merira Pepi, 124. 
Amnion, message from oracle of, 127. 
Amo : Latin for " love,' 17. 
Amys and Amylion, 167 f. 
Andrewes, Lancelot: a friend of Ba- 
con, 263 ; a friend of Herbert, 342. 
Angelo, Michael, and Vittoria Colon- 

na, 109. 
Anglo-Catholic movement, affected by 

friendships, 229 f. 
Anglo-Saxon term for "friend," 14. 
Anne, Queen, and the Duchess of 

Marlborough, 106. 
Anniceris, a friend of Plato, 255. 
Anselm and his friends, 191-194. 

397 



398 



Index. 



Antipho : his answer to Dionysius, 
232 f. 

Apocrypha, the, friendship in, 75, 
100 f. 

Apollo and Diana, no. 

Apostles, the, sent out in pairs, 175 f. 

Appeals to God in vows of friendship, 
71 f. 

Aquinas, Thomas, and Bonaventura, 
106, 196-199. 

Arabia, friendship in, 108. 

Arabia, a king of, influenced by friend- 
ship, 131. 

"Arabian Nights:" cited, 152. 

Arabic folk-lore : its lessons of friend- 
ship, 82 f. 

Arbuthnot, John, a friend of Pope, 350. 

Archbishop of Mentz, a friend of 
Leibnitz, 279. 

Aretheus, a Corinthian, 30, 31. 

Aristogiton and Harmodius, 231-233. 

Aristotle: cited, 20, 31, 35, 59^,64, 

73. 94. 97 f-. 119. *55 f- ; his in- 
debtedness to friendship, 256 f. ; his 
friendship for his wife, 257. 

Arjuna and Krishna, 286 f. 

Arnauld, a friend of Leibnitz, 279. 

Arnold, Matthew : cited, 202. 

Arnold of Schoonhaven and Thomas 
a Kempis, 200 f. 

Arnold, Thomas, and his friends, 230. 

Artemesiaand Mausolus, 112. 

Asheton, a friend of Gray, 351. 

Ashley, Lord, (Earl Shaftesbury,) and 
John Locke, 268-270. 

"Athanase, Prince," Shelley's: its 
meaning, 359. 

Athenian liberties advanced by friend- 
ship, 231-233. 

Atterbury, Bishop, a friend of Pope, 

350- 

Augustan Age, the : friendship its 
glory, 131. 

Augustine, St.: cited, 94; his rela- 
tions with his mother, no ; his 
friendships, 181-184. 

Augustus Caesar and his friend Agrip- 
pa, 128-131. 

" Auld Lang Syne," a song of friend- 
ship, 355- 

Austen, Lady, a friend of Cowper, 353. 

"Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," 
quotation from, 91. 



Awbrey, Mrs. Mary, a friend of 
Katherine Philips, 342. 

Babylonia : its early records, 122. 

Bacon, Lord: cited, 13, 52, 63, 87, 
121, 263 f. ; his relations with Essex, 
259-262; his indebtedness to friend- 
ship, 259-264 ; a friend of George 
Herbert, 342. 

"Banquet," Plato's: cited, 155. 

Barnabas and St. Paul, 176 f. 

Barrett, Elizabeth, as friend and wife, 
112, 363 f. ; inspired by Browning's 
unselfish love, 364 ; her testimony 
to the power of friendship, 382. 

Bartoli, a biographer of Loyola, 219 f. 

Bassus, Caesius, a friend of Persius, 
296. 

Bastile, the : its storming, 248 f. 

Baxter, Richard: cited, 237; his esti- 
mate of Herbert, 341. 

Baynes, T. S. : cited, 340. 

Beaconsfield, Lord and Lady, 112. 

Beatrice and Dante, 300-304. 

Behrisch, a friend of Goethe, 374 f. 

Bele and Thorstein, 163. 

Believing better than seeing, 41 f. 

Benedict, St., and St. Scholastica, 111. 

Benson, Bishop, a friend of Berkeley, 
276. 

Bentinck, William, and King Wil- 
liam III., 106, 135-139. 

Berkeley, Bishop : his philosophy and 
his friendships, 273-276. 

Bhagavad Gita.: its nature and origin, 
287. 

Bias, false theory of, 45. 

Bible, the : its view of friendship, 25, 
47-51, 386-393. 

" Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New 
Testament Greek," Cremer's: cited, 

39°- 

Bion and Mosehus, poet-friends, 290 f. 

Bishop Jeremy Taylor : cited, 13, 57 f., 
88,95; as a friend, 342. 

Bishop Lancelot Andrewes : a friend 
of Lord Bacon, 263 ; of George 
Herbert, 342. 

Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, 316. 

Blood, transfusion of, in friendship, 
70 f. 

" Blot in the 'Scutcheon, A : " an out- 
come of friendship, 362. 



Index. 



399 



Bohemond and Tancred, 170 f. 

Boileau and his friends, 368. 

Boineburg, Baron von, a friend of 
Leibnitz, 279. 

Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas, 
106, 196-199. 

Booddhism : its estimate of friendship, 
78 f.,90. 

Bowring, E. A. : his translation from 
Goethe, 374. 

Boyle, Robert : a friend of the Count- 
ess of Ran elagh, in ; of John Locke, 
270. 

Broad Church, the, movement and 
friendships, 229 f. 

Bronte, Charlotte, Anne, and Emily, 
in. 

Brooke, Lord, and Sir Philip Sidney, 
106. 

Brothers of the Common Life, friend- 
ships among, 199-202. 

Brougham, Lord: cited, 239, 249. 

Browne, Mrs., and Mrs. Hemans, no. 

Browne, Sir Thomas : cited, 31, 52 f. ( 
119. 

Browning, Elizabeth B. : cited, 60. 

Browning, Robert : cited, 23, 33, 34, 
56, 86, 97, 328 ; as poet and as 
friend, 361-364; as friend, lover, 
and husband, 112, 362-364. 

Bruce, King Robert, and Sir James 
Douglas, 171. 

Brunhild and Kriemhild, rivalry of, 

287. 
Brutus and Collatinus, 234 f. 
Bryant, W. C: quotation from his 

translation of the Iliad, 285. 
Budgel : cited, 156. 
Bunsen, Baron : his friendships, 112, 

230. 
Burnet, Bishop: cited, in. 
Burns, Robert, as friend and poet, 

354 f- 
Burr, Aaron, and Theodosia, no. 
Butler, Lady Eleanor, and Miss Sarah 

Ponsonby, 106. 
Byron, Lord, as friend and poet, 357 f. 

CAESAR, Julius : cited, 162. 

Calderon de la Barca : cited, 81. 

Calvin, John: his relations with John 
Knox, 213, 215-218; with Nicholas 
Cop and Louis du Tillot, 218. 



Cardinal Colonna, a friend of Petrarch, 

3*3- 

Cardinal de Berulle, a friend of Des- 
cartes, 265. 

Carlyle, Thomas: cited, 370. 

Carter, Elizabeth, and Catharine Tal- 
bot, 106. 

Carton, Sydney, and Lucie Manette, 

173 f- 

Castor and Pollux, 109 f., 289, 297. 
Catherine, Countess of Ranelagh, and 

Robert Boyle, in. 
Catullus and Veranius, 292. 
Caulaincourt : cited, 148. 
Cavalieri, Tommaso de', a friend of 

Michael Angelo, 384 f. 
Chalon, M. de, a friend of Pierre Cor- 

neille, 367 f. 
Chanut, Pierre, a friend of Descartes, 

266. 
Charixenus, a Sicyonian, 30, 31. 
Charlemagne and Alcuin, friendship 

of, 132 f. 
Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, 

132 f 
Charles V. and his young friend, 133 f. 
Charlotte, Queen Sophia, of Prussia, 

a friend of Leibnitz, 279 f. 
Chaucer, Geoffrey : cited, 44; his po- 
etry and his friendships, 314-317. 
Chesterfield, Lord : his friendship for 

Thomas Prior, 275. 
" Childe Harold:" its impress of 

friendship, 358. 
China, friendship in ancient, 125 f. 
Chinese classics, lessons of friendship 

in, 76. 
Chinese maxim, 97. 
Chivalry and friendship, 166-169, 297- 

300. 
Chivalry: its work forwoman, 297-300. 
Choo He : cited, 51. 
" Christabel," quotation from, 68. 
Christianity more favorable than pa- 
ganism to friendship, 202. 
Christina, Queen of Sweden, a friend 

of Descartes, 266 f. 
Chrysostom, St., and Olympias, 108. 
Church, Dean: cited, 192, 259-262, 

325- 
Cicero: cited, 13, 21, 32, 45, 52,60, 

61, 67, 73, 87, 97, 119, 258, 291. 
Cicero and Tullia, no. 



4-00 



Index. 



"Cid, The," Corneille's, an outcome 

of friendship, 367 f. 
Clare, Earl, a friend of Byron, 358. 
Clare, St., and St. Francis, 109, 194- 

196. 
Clarendon : cited, 236 f. 
Clarke, Edward, a friend of John 

Locke, 270. 
Clarke, Mary, and Julius Mohl, 112. 
Clayton, John, and the Wesleys, 225. 
Clerk, William, a friend of Scott, 356. 
Clerselier, Claude, a friend of Des- 
cartes, 266. 
Codex Amoris, 298. 
Coleridge, Sir John T. : cited, 36. 
Coleridge, Samuel T. : cited, 55, 67 f. 
Coleridge and Wordsworth : their 

friendships, 229, 359 f. 
Coleridge, Sara, mother and daughter, 

no. 
Colet, John, and Erasmus, 106, 202- 

207. 
"Colin Clouts Come Home Again," 

Spenser's, quotation from, 327. 
Collatinus and Brutus, 234 f. 
Collins, Anthony, a friend of John 

Locke, 272. 
Colonna, James, a friend of Petrarch, 

313. 
Colonna.Vittoria, andMichael Angelo, 

109. 
Comic poetry of Terence, 292. 
" Commentaries," Caesar's, quotation 

from, 162. 
"Commonplaces of Theology," Me- 

lanchthon's : its origin and influ- 
ence, 213 f. 
" Comus," Milton's: its prompting in 

friendship, 347 f. 
Confidence, a feature of friendship, 66. 
Confucius : a disciple of, cited, 43, 51 ; 

his estimate of friendship, 76, 87, 

252 f. 
Congreve .William, a friend of Dry den , 

348. 

Contarini, Thomas, a friend of George 
Berkeley, 275. 

Cooke, John Esten : cited, 63. 

Coolidge, Susan : cited, 91. 

Cop, Nicholas, and John Calvin, 218. 

Corneille, Pierre: as friend and poet, 
366-368 : his place in French litera- 
ture, 366 f. 



Corneille, Thomas, brother and friend 

of Pierre, 368. 
Cornelia, sister and friend of Goethe, 

372. 
Corpus Christi, origin of liturgy for, 

198. 
Correspondence of friends, 61. 
Cotterel, Sir Charles, a friend of 

Katherine Philips, 242. 
Count de Ripert-Monclair, a friend of 

Browning, 362. 
Count de Thorane, a friend of Goethe, 

372 f. 
Court of Love : its code of laws, 298 f. 
Cowley, Abraham, cited, 342. 
Cowper, William, as poet and friend, 

i°9, 353- 
Cranch, C. P. : his translations of 

Virgil, 161 f. 
Cranston, Dr., a friend of Thomson, 

35i- 

Craterus, a friend of Alexander, 127 f. 

Cremer : cited, 390. 

Critias, a Greek artist, 232. 

Crito, a friend of Socrates, 254. 

Cross-brotherhood in Russia, 163 f. 

Crotus Rubianus and Martin Luther, 
208. 

Crusades, the, friendship in, 169 f. 

Cudworth, Damaris, a friend of John 
Locke, 272 f. 

Cztr Deus Homo, Anselm's : friend- 
ship its prompting, 194. 

Curtius, Quintius : cited, 127. 

Cyrnus and Theognis, 290. 

Dacre : translator of Petrarch, 309. 
D'Aubigne, J. H. Merle : cited, 209 f., 

213 f. 
Damon and Pythias, 106; influence 

of their friendship, 131 ; disciples of 

Pythagoras, 252. 
Dante and Beatrice, 300-304. 
Dante : his place as a poet, 300, 310 f. ; 

his friendship for Cavalcanti and 

Guido Novello da Polenta, 311 f . ; 

cited, 383. 
Danton, Georges Jacques, and Ca- 

mille Desmoulins, 248-250. 
David : his estimate of friendship, 48 ; 

his friendship for Jonathan, 27 f., 

37. 38, 63, 106; for Saul, 56 f. : his 

friends Ahithophel and Hushai, 125. 



Index. 



401 



De Amicitia, Cicero's, 64, 292. 

De Balzac, Guez, a friend of Descartes, 
266. 

De Berulle, Cardinal, a friend of Des- 
cartes, 265. 

De Bobadilla, a friend of Loyola, 221. 

Definition of " friendship," 12-18. 

Degrees of friendship, 93-104. 

Demasis, a friend of Napoleon, 144 f. 

Denman, Ann, and John Flaxman, 
112. 

De Quincey : cited, 202. 

Descartes : his place as a philosopher, 
264 f. ; his indebtedness to friend- 
ship, 264-267. 

Desmoulins, Camille, and Georges 
Jacques Dan ton, 248-250. 

" Dethe of Blaunche the Duchesse, 
The," Chaucer's, 316. 

Dhammapada: its estimate of love, 78. 

Diana and Apollo, no. 

Dickens, Charles : cited, 173 f. 

Diede, Charlotte : a friend of Wil- 
helm von Humboldt, 61, 109. 

Dietrich, Sir, a hero in the Nibelun- 
genlied, 289. 

Diligere : Latin for "love," 17, 390. 

Dimitriev : cited, 81. 

Diodati, Charles, a friend of Milton, 

347 f- 
Diodorus : cited, 160. 
Diogenes Laertius : cited, 98, 258. 
Diomedes and Glaucus, 285. 
Diomedes and Ulysses, 158, 285. 
Dion, a friend of Plato, 255. 
Dionysius, of Syracuse : influence of 

friendship on, 131 ; his oppression 

of Plato, 255. 
Distrust, excluded from friendship, 

35;46. 

Divina Commedia, Dante's, 303 f. 

Divine friendship, 26, 385 f. 

Dobrynya and Dunai, 164. 

Dominicans and Franciscans, 194-198. 

Dommett, Alfred, a friend of Brown- 
ing, 362 f. 

Donne, Dr. John, friend of George 
Herbert and his mother, 341 f. 

Dorothy Wordsworth, her brother's 
friend, 359 f. 

Douglas, Sir James, L.nd King Robert 
Bruce, 171. 

Dowden, Edward : cited, 332 f. 

26 



"Dramatic Romances," Browning's, 

quotation from, 361. 
Draupadi, the wife of five brothers, 

286. 
Drummond, biographer of Erasmus, 

204. 
Dryden : cited, 60, 63, 95, 342; as 

poet and friend, 348. 
Duane, James, Alexander Hamilton's 

letters to, 243 f. 
Ducis: cited, 368. 
Dunai' Ivanovich and Dobrynya Niki- 

tich, 164. 
Dunlop, Mrs., of Dunlop, a friend of 

Burns, 355. 
Duroc, a friend of Napoleon, 146-149. 
Duryodhana, leader of Kauravas, 286. 
Du Tillot, Louis, and John Calvin, 

218. 
Dyson, Jeremiah, a friend of Akenside, 

35i f- 

Ea, a god of the Babylonians, 122. 
Eabani and Izdubar, 122 f. 
Eadmer and Anselm, 193 f. 
Ebers, Georg : cited, 41. 
Edgeworth, Richard and Maria, no. 
"Education," Locke's treatise on: its 

origin, 270. 
Egmont, Earl of, a friend of Berkeley, 

275- 

Egypt, friendship in ancient, 41, 123. 

Electra and Orestes, no. 

" Elegy," Gray's : its prompting in 
friendship, 351. 

Eliot, George : cited, 25, 46. 

Eliot, Sir John, John Hampden, and 
John Pym, 236-239. 

Elizabeth, Princess, a friend of Des- 
cartes, 266. 

Elliott, Sir Gilbert, a friend of Hume, 
278. 

Ellis, George, a friend of Scott, 357. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo : cited, 23, 
3 6 . 38, 43. S3 f -» 60 f., 82, 96, 256, 
370, 383 f. 

"Encyclopaedia Britannica," quota- 
tion from, 243 f. 

Endamidas, a Corinthian, 30, 31. 

Engel: cited, 53. 

English poetry, shaped by friendship, 
321 f. 

Enmity, costs less than friendship, 89. 



4-02 



Index. 



Ennius: cited, 80; his estimate of 
friendship, 292. 

" 'Enoch, Book of," an Arabic classic, 
82 f. 

Envy, excluded from friendship, 35-46. 

Epaminondasand Pelopidas, 106, 159 f. 

Epic poems the world's first litera- 
ture, 284. 

Epicureans and Stoics, friendship 
among, 258. 

Epicurus : cited, 24. 

Epitaphiwn Damonis, Milton's: cited, 

347- 

" Epithalamion," Spenser's, quotation 
from, 323 f. 

Epochs of history : their center in in- 
dividuals, 117. 

Erasmus, his friendship for John 
Colet, 106, 202-207 ; compared with 
Luther, 203 ; cited, 213. 

Erdmann : cited, 255. 

Erskine, William, afriend of Scott, 356. 

Eskimo, folk-lore tales of, 85. 

" Essay Concerning Human Under- 
standing," Locke's: its origin and 
influence, 269. 

Essex, Earl of, and Lord Bacon, 259- 
262. 

Estrangement, a cause of suffering, 68. 

Eton, Gray's friendships at, 351. 

Euripides, cited, 52, 87; friendship in 
his poetry, 289 f. 

Euryalus and Nisus, 161 f. 

Eusebius and Pamphilus, 106, 179-181. 

Evelyn, John : cited, 53. 

Exchanges, symbolic, in friendship, 

73 f - 
Excursus on New Testament words 
for " love " and " friendship," 389 f. 

Faber, Peter, and Ignatius Loyola, 
218-221. 

"Faerie Queene," Spenser's: its writ- 
ing, 3 2 5-3 2 7- 

Faithfulness, the hunger of a faithful 
heart, 46. 

"Faust," Goethe's: friendship's influ- 
ence on it, 376, 380. 

Fear, out of place in love, 40. 

Feather -on -the -Head, and Three 
Bears, 165 f. 

Fell, Margaret, and George Fox, 221- 
223. 



Fenelon and Mme. Guion, 109. 
Fichte, J. G., and his friends, 281 f; 
Fiction, friendship in, 173. 
Finch, Francis, a writer on friendship, 

343 f- 

Flaxman, John, and Ann Denrnan, 
112. 

Flower, Miss Lizzie, afriend of Brown- 
ing, 362. 

Folk-lore : its lessons of friendship, 
82-86. 

Forster, John, a friend of Browning, 
362. 

Foster, John : his illustration of de- 
grees of friendship, 96. 

Fox, George, and Margaret Fell, 221- 
223. 

Francis, St., of Assisi, and St. Clare, 
109, 194-196. 

Franciscan Order : friendship in its 
founding, 194-196. 

Franklin, Benjamin, maxim of, 45. 

Fraser, Professor A. C. : cited, 273. 

Frau von Stein, Goethe's friendship 
for, 377 f. 

French poetry : friendship an inspira- 
tion in, 366-369. 

French Revolution, the : friendship's 
part in, 248-250. 

Friend, a: of art, 16; of country, 16; 
of literature, 16 ; of science, 16 ; as 
one's own self, 47. 

Friend, the one : a court title in an- 
cient Egypt, 123. 

Friendliness not friendship, 97-101. 

Friends, the Society of: its early his- 
tory, 221-223. 

Friends, who can be? 105-114. 

Friendship : conflicting estimates of, 
13 ; as a sentiment, not as a rela- 
tion, 14 ; meaning of the word, 14 ; 
misconceptions of its nature, 14 ; its 
etymology, 14 ; unselfishness of, 15- 
17,18 ; notincompatiblewithlove,i8, 
105-114; consists in being a friend, 
19; maybe a mutual affection, 19; 
does not pivot on reciprocity, 19-26 ; 
is loving rather than being loved, 19- 
26 ; is loving another for his own 
sake, 20 ; may be coexistent with 
other loves, 20 ; what faults are seen 
in it, 20 f. ; its disinterestedness, 21 ; 
is wholly unselfish, 27-34 i i ts j°y m 



Index. 



403 



serving, 33 ; includes readiness for 
all service, 34; excludes selfishness, 
35 ; its own excuse for being, 35 ; 
is without envy or distrust, 35-46 ; 
transcends all loves, 47-58 ; is a 
tie of the soul, 49-51 ; is more than 
conjugal or kinship love, 50-58, 

69 f. ; is changeless in changes, 59- 
68 ; legacies of, 63 f. ; is of world- 
wide honor, 69-86 ; its permanency, 

70 f. ; its sacredness, 70 f. ; is equal- 
ity. 73 1 lightens burdens, 87 ; is 
gainfully expensive, 87-92 ; is gain- 
ful only to the unselfish, 88 f . ; its 
limitations and imitations, 93-104; 
is " charity," 95 ; is soul-expanding, 
101 f. ; that might have been, 104 ; 
is possible between whom ? 105-1 14 ; 
between man and man, 106 f. ; be- 
tween woman and woman, 106 f. ; 
between man and woman, 107-109 ; 
preceding and accompanying wed- 
ded love, 112 ; following wedded 
love, 113 ; compatible with every 
relation of life, 114; its surpassing 
potency, 117-120; its power in all 
the ages, 118 ; its strongest hold is 
on the strongest, 118 ; is a posses- 
sion of the great-hearted, 119; in- 
fluencing royalty, 121 -154; pro- 
moting heroism, 155-174 ; in ancient 
chivalry, 162-169 ; impelling reli- 
gious movements, 175-230 ; advan- 
cing civil liberty, 231-250 ; affecting 
philosophic thought, 251-282; its 
uplifting power, 352 ; inspiring po- 
etry, 283 380 ; among the Greeks, 
296 f. ; in classic days and in Chris- 
tian, 296-300; for one's wife, 322- 
324 ; is an element of virtue, 350 ; 
is earth's best gift to man, 350; its 
power for good or ill, 354 ; amongst 
French poets, 368 f. ; what it has 
done for the world, 381 ; transfigur- 
ing all life, 381-387. 

Friendship-dance, 71 f. 

Friendship-love : such love as God 
gives, 385-387 ; its prominence in 
the New Testament, 389-393. 

" Friendships of Women," Alger's 
work on, no. 

Fritz, the son of Frau von Stein, 378. 

Froude, Hurrell, and his friends, 230. 



Froude, J. A. : cited, 203. • 
Furnivall, F. J. : cited, 332, 340. 

Gain: of having a friend, 382; of being 
a friend, 382 f. ; of union in friend- 
ship, 384 f. 

Gambold, John, and the Wesleys, 225 f. 

Gardner, Samuel Rawson: cited, 237. 

Gaunt, John of, a friend of Chaucer, 
316 f. 

Gay, John : cited, 55 ; a friend of 
Pope, 350. 

Gemini, the, a sign of the zodiac, 
122. 

Geraldine( Elizabeth Fitz Gerald), Sur- 
rey a friend of, 318, 322. 

German : proverb from, 53 ; root-term 
for friendship in, 74. 

Gesta Romanorum, 84. 

" Gilpin, John," Cowper's, inspired by 
friendship, 353. 

Gladstone, William Ewart, and Cath- 
erine Glynne, 112; cited, 240. 

Glaucus and Diomedes, 285. 

Gnomic poems of Theognis, 290. 

Godfrey and Tancred, 106, 170 f. 

Goethe, cited, 32, 33, 57; his place 
in literature, 370 ; his characteristics 
as a friend, 370-372 ; his friendship 
for Schiller, 106, 379 f. ; for Count 
de Thorane, 372 ; for his sister, 372 ; 
for Gretchen, 373 ; for Fraulein von 
Klettenberg. 373 ; for Schlosser and 
Behrisch, 373 f. ; for Herder, 375; 
for Merck, 375 f. ; for Karl August, 
376 f. ; for Frau von Stein, 377 f. 

" Golden Words " of Pythagoras, 252. 

G'otz von Berlichingen, Goethe's : its 
prompting, 372. 

Gower, John, a friend of Chaucer, 317. 

Gracchi, the, no. 

Gray, Thomas, as friend and poet, 351. 

Greek, "love" and "friendship" in, 

17. 74, 389 ff « 
Green, a friend of Kant, 281. 
Green, J. R. : cited, 203 f., 215-217, 

237 f. 
Gretchen, Goethe's friendship for, 373. 
Grignan, Mme. de, and Mme. de 

Sevigne, no. 
Grimm, the Brothers: cited, 83 f. 
Groot, Gerhard, and Henry Aeger, 

199. 



404 



Index. 



Grote, George: cited, 232, 255. 
"Guardian Angel," Browning's: a 

tribute of friendship, 361. 
Guillaume, Francois Pierre, and Mme. 

Guizot, no. 
Guion, Mme., and Fenelon, 109. 
Guizot, M.: cited, 240, 244, 249, 368. 
Guizot, Mme., and Francois Pierre 

Guillaume, no. 
Gunner and Njal, 84 f. 
Gunther and Siegfried, 287. 

Hadrian, and Theodore of Tarsus, 
189-191. 

Hafiz: cited, 81. 

Hagen : his friendships and his treach- 
ery, 287-289. 

Halfdan and Viking, 162. 

Hall, Gordon, and Samuel J. Mills, 
227-229. 

Hallam, Arthur, the friend of Tenny- 
son, 38, 106, 364 f. 

Hallam, Sir Henry: cited, 236, 264, 
269, 310, 333, 369. 

Hamilton, Alexander, and George 
Washington, 239-247. 

Hamilton, Gavin, a friend of Burns, 

354 f- 

Hamilton, Sir William, and Lady, 
112. 

Hampden, John, and his friends, 106, 
236-239. 

Hare, J. C., and his friends, 230. 

Harmodius and Aristogiton, 231-233. 

Haroon-ar-Rasheedand Jaafer, 152 f. 

Harrow, Byron's friendships at, 358. 

Harvey, Gabriel, a friend of Spenser, 
324 f. 

Hassan, the poet : cited, 185 f. 

Hatstein, Marquard von: cited, 204. 

" Hava-mal," quotation from, 79 f. 

Heart, a bleeding, a symbol of friend- 
ship, 171. 

Hebrew word for " friend," 48 ; 
words for " love " and " friendship," 

99 *• 

Hector and Andromache, 297. 

Hegel and his friends, 281 f. 

Helen of Sparta, a cause of discord, 
284. 

Hemans, Mrs., and Mrs. Browne, no. 

" Henry VIII.," Shakespeare's, quota- 
tion from, 330. 



Hephaestion, the friend of Alexander, 
106, 126-128. 

Herbert, George : cited, 23 ; his 
mother's friendship, no ; his friend- 
ship for Lord Bacon, 263 ; as poet 
and as friend, 341 f. 

Herbert, William, Earl of Pembroke, 

333. 34° f- 
Hercules and Iolaiis, 156 f. 
Herder, J. G. : his friendship for his 

wife, 112; for Goethe, 375. 
" Hermann and Dorothea," Goethe's : 

a fruit of friendship, 380. 
Hermias, of Atarneus, a friend of 

Aristotle, 257. 
Heroism promoted by friendship, 155- 

174. 
Herschel, William and Caroline, 111. 
Hervey, James, and the Wesleys, 225. 
"Hexapla," Origen's: its character, 

177 f. 
Hildreth, Richard: cited, 241. 
Hindoos, sacred books of, 43, 51, 76. 
Hipparchus and Hippias, sons of 

Pisistratus, 231 f. 
Hiram of Tyre, a friend of David and 

Solomon, 63, 
" History of German Literature," 

Scherer's, quotation from, 377 f. 
History, the world's, as history of in- 
dividuals, 117. 
Hoddeson, John, a friend of Dryden, 

348 f. 
Hoff, a friend of Shelley, 359. 
Hogg, James, a friend of Scott, 357. 
Holland, F. M. : cited, 305. 
Holmes, Dr. O. W. : cited, 91. 
"Holy Fair, The," Burns's : its 

prompting, 354 f. 
" Holy Willie's Prayer," Burns's : its 

prompting, 355. 
Homayoon and Koornivati, 164 f. 
Homer : cited, 63, 73, 156, 160. 
Horace: his friendship for Virgil, 106; 

for Maecenas, 293-295. 
Hortalus, brother-friend of Catullus, 

292. 
Houghton, Lord : cited, 68. 
Howard, Sir Robert, a friend of Dry- 
den, 348. 
Howitt, William and Mary : cited, 79 f. 
Hugh de Sade, husband of Petrarch's 

" Laura," 306. 



Index. 



405 



Humboldt, Wilhelm von : cited, 61 f. ; 

his friendship for Charlotte Siede, 

109; for Caroline von Dacheroden, 

112. 
Hume, David : his philosophy and his 

friendships, 273, 276-278. 
Hunt, Helen: cited, 25. 
Hushai, a friend of David, 125. 
Hutchinson, John, and Lucy, 112. 
Hutton, R. H. : cited, 356, 370 f. 

Icelandic folk-lore tales, illustra- 
tions from, 84 f. 

Icelandic sagas : illustrations from, 
41, 42; their lessons of friendship, 
79 f. ; quotation from, 162 f. 

Ideal : seen in or for a friend, 36, 37, 

39- 

Iliad, the, friendship and love in, 284- 
286. 

" Imitation of Christ: " its origin in 
friendships, 199-202. 

Imitations and limitations of friend- 
ship 93-104. 

" In Memonam : " quotations from, 
39-. 55. 9°. 9 6 . 3 6 5 f - ; n s place as a 
lyric of friendship, 364-366. 

India, friendship in, 107 f., 164 f. 

Indians, North American, friendship 
among, 165 f. 

Ingham, Benjamin, and the Wesleys, 
225. 

Intimacies of friendship separable from 
friendship, 65. 

Iolaus and Hercules, 156 f. 

Irving, Washington : cited, 244. 

Izdubar and Eabani, 122 f. 

Jaafer and Haroon-ar-Rasheed, 

152 f. 

Jackmann, a friend of Kant, 281. 

]amee, translation from, 22. 

James, St. : his reference to Abraham, 

48 f. 
Jefferson, Thomas : his relations with 

Hamilton, 246. 
Jehan, Shah, and Nour Jehan, 112. 
Jelal-ed-Deen and Shaykh Solayman, 

153 f- 

Jerome, St., and Paula, 108. 
Jesuitism : its origin and influence, 
218-221. 



Jesus Christ : his standard of loving, 
26 ; his estimate of friendship, 49 f., 
75 ; his friendship unchanging, 66 ; 
his lessons on friendship, 88 f. ; he 
chooses John as a friend, 175 ; his 
conversation with Peter, 392. 

Jewish standard of friendship, 66. 

John, St. : the friend of Jesus, 175 ; of 
St. Paul, 176. 

John the Baptist, as a friend, 38. 

Johnson, Dr., and Mrs. Thrale, 109. 

Jonathan and David: their friendship, 
27. 28, 37, 38, 62, 106. 

Joseph, the one friend of Pharaoh, 
124. 

Josephine, the truest friend of Napo- 
leon, 149-152. 

Josephus : cited, 66. 

"Julius Csesar," Shakespeare's, quota- 
tion from, 330. 

Kant, Immanuel : David Hume's in- 
fluence on, 276 ; his philosophy and 
his friendships, 280 f. 

Karl, August : his friendship for 
Goethe, 376 £ 

Keble, John, and his friends, 230. 

Kenyon, John, a friend of the Brown- 
ings, 362. 

Ketel, John, and Thomas a. Kempis, 
201 f. 

Khaleefs, Muhammadan, 152. 

King, Edward, a friend of Milton, 348. 

Kings : their longing to be loved, 121. 

Kingsley, Charles: his story of two 
monk-friends, 31, 32 ; his friend- 
ship for Fanny Grenfell, 112 ; cita- 
tion of, 119 ; his friendships, 230. 

Kinship, friendship coexistent with, 
109-111. 

Kirke, Edward, a friend of Spenser, 

324 f- 

Kirkham, Robert, and the Wesleys, 
225. 

Klettenberg, Fraulem von : her influ- 
ence on Goethe, 373. 

Knight, Professor William : cited, 276. 

Knox, General, a friend of Washing- 
ton, 246 f. 

Knox, John, and George Wishart, 
218. 

Koornivati and Homayoon, 164 f. 

Kostlin, Julius : cited, 209, 213. 



406 



Index. 



Kriemhild, her love and vengeance, 

287-290. 
Krishna and Arjuna, friendship of, 

286 f. 

La Bruyere: cited, 22,37, 119. 
Lacordaire and Mme. Swetchine, 109. 
Laelius and Scipio: their friendship, 

21, 64, 292. 

Lafayette : cited, 244. 

La Fontaine and his friends, 368. 

Laidlow, William, a friend of Scott, 

357- 

Lake Poets, the : their friendships, 
360. 

Lamb, Charles : cited, 55 ; his friend- 
ship for his sister, in. 

Lanfranc and Anselm, 192. 

Lannes, General, at Arcole, 172. 

La Rochefoucauld : cited, 24, 43. 

Latin, root-term for friendship in, 

73 *"• 
Laura and Petrarch, 305-310. 
Laurens, Colonel John : cited, 243. 
Lavater, John C. : cited, 61, 81; his 

friendship for Fichte, 282. 
Lawes, Henry, a friend of Milton, 

347 f- 
Laynez, Diego, an associate of Loyola, 

221. 
Le CI ere, a friend of John Locke, 270. 
Lefort, Franz, and Peter the Great, 

139-142. 
Legacies of friendship, 30, 31, 63 f. 
Leibnitz, Baron : his philosophy and 

his friendships, 278-280. 
Leoline, Sir, and Lord Roland, 68. 
"Letters of Julius to Raphael," Schil- 
ler's, quotation from, 385. 
Lewes, George H. : cited, 264, 378 f. 
Leyden, John, a friend of Scott, 

356 f. 
Liberty, civil, advanced by friendship, 

231-250. 
Liddon, Canon: cited, 202. 
" Life in a Love," Browning's, 23. 
Life transfigured by friendship, 381- 

387. 

Liking, or likening, in love, 74. 

Limborch, Philippus van, a friend of 
John Locke, 270. 

Limitations and imitations of friend- 
ship, 93-104. 



Lind, Dr., a friend of Shelley, 358 f. 

Locke, John: his friendship for Lady 
Masham, 109; his indebtedness to 
friendships, 267-273. 

Lodge, Henry Cabot : cited, 243, 246. 

Loft, C, a translator of Petrarch, 307. 

Longfellow, Henry W. : cited, 56, 
304, 311 f., 376. 

Lothheissen : cited, 369. 

Love : differentiated from friendship, 
14-17, 389-393 ; selfish element in, 
15-17 ; not incompatible with friend- 
ship, 18, 105-114; begets love, 19; 
cannot be wasted, 104 ; as an in- 
spiration of poetry, 283 f. 

Lover, a : differentiated from a friend, 
14-17 ; a true friend is, 100 ; of art, 
16; of country, 16; of literature, 
16; of science, 16. 

Loving, rather than being loved, 19-26. 

Lowell, James Russell : cited, 316. 

Loyola, Ignatius: his work and his 
friendships, 218-222. 

Lubh : Sanskrit for "love," 17, 390. 

" Lucasia," a friend of Katherine 
Philips, 342, 345. 

Lucilius : his help from friendship, 292. 

Lucretia, wife of Collatinus : her 
wrong and its avenging, 233 f. 

Luke, St., and St. Paul, 177. 

Luthardt: cited, 393. 

Luther, Martin, and his friendships, 
106, 208-215 ; compared with Eras- 
mus, 203. 

Lyric poetry of Pindar, 289 f. 

" Lycidas," Milton's, a tribute of 
friendship, 348. 

Lysis and Menexenus, 254. 

MACAULAY, T. Babington : cited, 

138 f., 141, 237 f., 261, 270. 
Macgregor: a translator of Petrarch, 

3°7. 3 IQ - 

Macready, W. C, a friend of Brown- 
ing, 362. 

Maecenas, a friend of poets, 292-295. 

Magdalen, Lady, and George Her- 
bert, no. 

Mahabharata, the, illustrations from, 
51, 76, 284, 286 f. 

Mahaffy, Professor J. P. : cited, 266. 

Malebranche, a friend of Leibnitz, 
279. 



Index. 



407 



Mallet, David, a friend of Thomson, 

35i. 
Mansfield, Lord, and Charles Wesley, 

224. 
" Manu, Institutes of," lessons of 

friendship in, 76. 
Manuel, a Castilian poet: cited, 43. 
Mapletoft, John, a friend of John 

Locke, 270. 
Maratti, Faustina, and Giambattista 

Zappi, 112. 
Marbois, as a friend, 143 f. 
Marlborough, the Duchess of, and 

Queen Anne, 106. 
Marriage : a tie of the flesh, 49-51. 
Martin, Sir Theodore : cited, 293 f. 
Mary Queen of Scots and Mary Seton, 

106. 
Masham, Lady, a friend of John 

Locke, 109, 272 f. 
Masham, Sir Francis, husband of 

Damaris Cudworth, 273. 
Matthew, Toby, a friend of Lord 

Bacon, 263. 
Maurice, F. D., and his friends. 230. 
Mausolus and Artemesia, 112. 
Melanchthon, Philip, and Martin 

Luther, 106, 210-215. 
Melite, Corneille's, an outcome of 

friendship, 367. 
Menander: cited, 80; his friendship 

for Epicurus, 268. 
Mencius: cited, 36, 125. 
Mendelssohn, Felix and Fanny, 111. 
Menelaus : his friendship for Tele- 

machus, 63. 
Menexenus and Lysis, 254. 
Menshikof and Peter the Great, 142 f. 
Mentz, Archbishop of, a friend of 

Leibnitz, 279. 
Merck, J. H. : his influence over 

Goethe, 375 f. 
Merira Pepi and Una, 123 f. 
Mermet, Claude : his epigram, 101. 
Mersenne, Marin, a friend of Des- 
cartes, 264-266. 
Methodism: its origin in friendships, 

223-226. 
Meyer: cited, 393. 
Michael Angelo : cited, 384 f. 
Michaud, J. F. : cited, 170. 
"Midsummer Night's Dream, A," 

Shakespeare's, quotation from, 329. 



Mill, John Stuart : his friendship for 

Mrs. Taylor, 112 ; cited, 267 f. 
Mills, Charles : cited, 167 ; his esti- 
mate of chivalry, 299. 
Mills, Samuel J., and his friends, 227- 

229. 
Milman, H. H., and his friends, 230. 
Miltitz, von, a friend of Fichte, 282. 
Milton, John, as poet and friend, 347 f. 
Minto, Professor William: cited, 314^, 

325 f., 332 f., 351, 360. 
Missions, Moravian : their origin, 226; 

from America, beginnings of, 227- 

229. 
Mithra, the god of light to Parsees, 77. 
Modern poetry : its beginning with 

Dante, 300. 
Mohl, Julius, and Mary Clarke, 112. 
Moliere and his friends, 368. 
Molyneaux, Samuel, a friend of George 

Berkeley, 275. 
Molyneaux, William, a friend of John 

Locke, 270-272. 
Monica, St., a friend of St. Ambrose, 

108 ; mother of St. Augustine, no. 
Monks, Charles Kingsley's story of 

two, 31 f. 
Monmouth, Lord, a friend of John 

Locke, 270. 
Montagu, a biographer of Lord Ba- 
con, 261 f. 
Montaigne : his story of two friends, 

29-31 ; cited, 35, 53, 94, 98. 
Moravian missions : their origin in 

friendships, 226 f. 
More, Hannah and Martha, in. 
Morgan, William, and the Wesleys, 

225. 
Moriey, Henry : cited, 316, 349. 
Morse, John T. : cited, 242, 247. 
Moschus and Bion, poet-friends, 290 f. 
Moses : his view of Divine love, 25 ; 

his estimate of friendship, 48 f. 
Motley, J. L. : cited, 134 f. 
Mountain-peaks of history noted, 120. 
Muhammad: his view of friendship, 

75 ; his friendship for Aboo Bekr, 

106, 184-189. 
Muhammadan : estimate of Abraham, 

49 ; estimate of friendship, 75. 
Muir, Sir William : cited, 186. 
Mure, Baron William, of Caldwell, a 

friend of David Hume, 277 f. 



4o8 



Index. 



Murray, Lady Sophy, andLady Doro- 
thea Sydney, 106. 

Mygorge, Claude, a friend of Des- 
cartes, 265. 

Naomi and Ruth, 28, 29, 106. 
Napoleon : cited, 13 ; friendships of, 

143-152. 
Necker, M., and Mme. de Stael, no. 
Newman, John Henry: cited, 62; his 

friendships, 230. 
New Testament : words for "love "in, 

17,386-393; its view of friendship, 

23". 75. 95- 
Newton, Sir Isaac, a friend of John 

Locke, 270. 
Nibelungenlied, the : friendship and 

love in, 284, 287-289. 
Niebuhr, B. G. : cited, 240. 
Nimrod, the Bible record of, 122. 
Nisus and Euryalus, 161 f. 
Njal and Gunner, 84 f. 
Njorfe and Viking, 163. 
Nooman III., influence of friendship 

on, 131. 
Norseland Eddas : their lessons of 

friendship, 79 f. 
Nour Jehan and Shah Jehan, 112. 

OCTAVIANUS, Caius, afterwards Au- 
gustus Caesar, 128-130. 

"Ode to the Skylark," Shelley's: its 
suggestion of friendship, 358. 

Old Testament : its view of friendship, 

25. 47 f- 
Oliphant, Mrs. : cited, 195 f. 
Oliver and Roland, 106, 169. 
Olympias and Chrysostom, 108. 
Onesimus, a friend of Paul, 50. 
" Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed," 

226. 
Orestes and Electra, no, 297. 
Orestes and Pylades, 106, 158 f, 289 f., 

291. 
Oriental view of friendship, 22. 
Origen and Alexander and Ambrose, 

177-179. 
" Orinda," a designation of Katherine 

Philips, 342, 345. 
Orpah and Naomi, 28, 29. 
Orr, Mrs. Sutherland : cited, 361, 363. 
Orrery, Earl of: cited, 342. 
Osbern and Anselm, 193. 



Osiris and Ra, union of, 73. 

Oswald, James, of Dunnekier, a friend 
of Hume, 278. 

Owen, Mrs. Annie, a friend of Kath- 
erine Philips, 107, 342. 

Oxford movement, the, friendships 
in, 229 f. 

P^ETUS, Thrasea, a friend of Persius, 
296. 

Palmer, Professor E. H. : cited, 152 f. 

Pamphilus and Eusebius, 106, 180 f. 

Pantheon, the, a memorial of friend- 
ship, 130. 

" Paracelsus," Browning's, an out- 
come of friendship, 362. 

Parnell, Thomas, a friend of Pope, 350. 

Parsees, the, sacred books of, jj. 

Patroclus and Achilles, 156 f., 285. 

Pattison, Mark : cited, 348. 

Paul St. : and Barnabas, 176 f. ; and 
Luke, 177; and Silas, 177; and Tim- 
othy, 177 ; his views of marriage and 
friendship, 49 f. ; his estimate of 
friendship-love, 386 f. 

Paula and St. Jerome, 108. 

Paulina and Seneca, 112. 

Peel, Robert, a friend of Byron, 358. 

Pelopidasand Epaminondas, 106, iS9f. 

Pembroke, Earl of, the friend of 
Shakespeare, 333, 340. 

Pembroke, Lord, a friend of John 
Locke, 270. 

Percival, Sir John, a friend of Berke- 
ley, 275. 

Persian poet, a : cited, 81. 

Persius and Cornutus, 295 f. 

Pestalozzi, a friend of Fichte, 282. 

Peter : his friendship for John, 176 ; 
his conversation with Jesus, 392. 

Peter the Great, friendships of, 139-143. 

Peterborough, Lord, George Berkeley 
chaplain to, 276. 

Petrarch : his friendship for Laura, 
305-310; his other friends, 312- 

314- 
Pharaoh Merira Pepi, story of, 123. 
Phelps, Austin : cited, 36. 
Philia : Greek word for love, 17, 386, 

389-393- 
Philip of Macedon: his appreciation 
of friendship, 160; a friend of Aris- 
totle, 256. 



Index, 



409 



Philippa, Queen, and Philippa Picard, 

106. 
Philips, Katherine : cited, 58 ; her 

friendship for Annie Owen, 107; as 

poet and friend, 342-347. 
Philosophers and their friends, 251- 

282. 
Philosophic thought affected by friend- 
ship, 251-282. 
Picot, Abbe, a friend of Descartes, 

265. 
Pindar, friendship in the poetry of, 

289 f. 
" Pippa Passes," illustration from, 

33. 34- 

Pirithoiis and Theseus, 157. 

Pirqe Aboth, maxim from, 24. 

Pisistratides, the: their place in Athe- 
nian history, 231, 232. 

Pisistratus, a friend of Solon, 233. 

Plato : cited, 20, 59, 155 ; his idea of 
friendship, 108 ; his indebtedness to 
friendship, 253-256. 

Plautus: cited, 57. 

" Pleasures of Imagination :" its trib- 
ute to friendship, 352. 

Pliny: cited, no. 

Plutarch : cited, 24, 42, 127, 157, 160. 

Poetry: inspired by friendship, 283- 
380 ; preceding prose in the world's 
literature, 284; more than philoso- 
phy, 284; its sources of inspiration, 
289. 

Poets and their friendships, 290-380. 

Ponsonby, Miss Sarah, and Lady 
Eleanor Butler, 106. 

Pope, Alexander, as friend and poet, 

35°- 
Pri: Sanskrit for "friendship," 17,390. 
Prior, Matt: cited, 82; his friendship 

for George Berkeley, 274 f. 
Proverbs, Book of: quotations from, 99. 
Proxenus of Atarneus, a friend of 

Aristotle, 256 f. 
Psalms, the, quotations from, 100. 
"Psyche," Corneille's: cited, 368. 
Publius Rutilius and his brother, no. 
Publius Syrus: maxims of, 40; cited, 

74- 
Pusey, Dr. E. B., and his friends, 230. 
Pylades and Orestes, 106, 158 f. 
Pym, John, and his friends, 106, 236- 

239- 



Pythagoras, the first philosopher, 251. 
Pythagoreans : their estimate of friend- 
ship, 252. 
Pythias and Damon, 106. 

QUARLES, Francis: cited, 24,45. 
Queen Anne Boleyn, a friend of Sir 

Thomas Wyatt, 318, 322. 
Queen Anne: her friendship with the 

Duchess of Marlborough, 106 ; 

George Berkeley at the court of, 275. 
Queen Christina, of Sweden, a friend 

of Descartes, 266 f. 
Queen of Scots, Mary, and Mary 

Seton, 106. 
Queen Philippa and Philippa Picard, 

106. 
Queen Sophia Charlotte, of Prussia : 

a friend of Leibnitz, 279 f. 
Quintius Curtius: cited, 127. 
Quran, the : friendship in, 75 ; its prep- 
aration and finishing, 189. 

Ra and Osiris, union of, 73. 

Racine and his friends, 368. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, a friend of Spen- 
ser, 326 f. 

Ramsay, Michael, a friend of David 
Hume, 277. 

Rashnoo, the god of truth to the Par- 
sees, jj. 

Recamier, Mme., and Mme. de Stael, 
106. 

Religious movements impelled by 
friendship, 175-230. 

Reverence, a factor in friendship, 36. 

Riccaulton, a friend and tutor of 
Thomson, 350 f. 

Richards, James, and Samuel J. Mills, 
227-229. 

Richter, Jean Paul: cited, 102, 119; 
a friend of Kant, 280 f. 

Robespierre and Camille, 249 f. 

Rodriguez, Simon, an associate of 
Loyola, 221. 

Roland and Oliver, 106, 168 f. 

Roland, Lord, and Sir Leoline, 67 f. 

Roland, M. and Mme., 112. 

Rollins, Alice Wellington: cited, 114. 

" Rosania," a friend of Katherine 
Philips, 342, 344. 

Roscommon, Earl of: cited, 342. 

Rose, H. J., and his friends, 230. 



4io 



Index. 



Roux, Joseph: cited, 51. 

Royalty influenced by friendship, 121- 

154- 

Riidiger von Bechlarn : his oath of 
friendship, 287-289. 

" Rule, Britannia," aproduct of friend- 
ship, 351. 

Rundle, Bishop, a friend of George 
Berkeley, 276. 

Russell, Earl, on Washington, 239 f. 

Russia, epic songs of, 163 f. 

Russian poet : cited, 81. 

Ruth: her friendship for Naomi, 28, 
29, 106. 

Sacrament, the holy, a bond of 
friendship, 167. 

Sacred books of the ages, the, friend- 
ship in, 74-80. 

" Sacred Band of Theban Friends," 
160, 162. 

Sacrifice, love's joy in, 24, 25. 

Saint-Amand : cited, 149 f. 

Saintsbury, George: cited, 867. 

Salmeron, Alfonso, an associate of 
Loyola, 221. 

" Sanatsugatiya," the, lessons of 
friendship in, 76 f. 

Sanskrit: "love" and "friendship" 
in, 17, 74, 390; translation from, 80. 

Satires, Roman: of Lucilius, 292; of 
Persius, 296 f. 

"Saul," Robert Browning's, 56. 

Schaff, Philip : cited, 214. 

Schelling, F. W. J., and his friends, 
281 f. 

Scherer, Wilhelm : cited, 377 f. 

Schiller: cited, 81; his friendship for 
Goethe, 106, 379 f. ; his testimony to 
the power of friendship, 385 ; his 
friendship for Korner, 385. 

Schlegels, the, friends of Hegel, 282. 

Schleiermacher, Ernest and Charlotte, 
in. 

Schlosser, a friend of Goethe, 373 f. 

Scholastica, St., and St. Benedict, 111. 

Schubli, Sheik : his idea of friend- 
ship, 22. 

Schultz, a teacher and a friend of 
Kant, 280. 

Schuyler, Eugene: cited, 140-142. 

Schwegler : cited, 280. 

Scipio : his friendship for Laelius, 21 ,64. 



Scipio Africanus and Ennius, 292. 
Scipios, the two, no. 
Scotch proverb on friendship, 89. 
Scott, Sir Walter, as friend and poet, 

355-357- 
"Seasons, The," Thomson's : their 

prompting by a friend, 351. 
Seeker, Archbishop, a friend of Berke- 
ley, 276. 
Seeley, Professor J. R. : cited, 370. 
Self-interest: an element of love, 16; 

not an element of friendship, 16. 
Seneca : cited, 45, 57 ; his friendship 

for Paulina, 112. 
Sentiment, the potency of, in history, 

117. 
Septuagint, the, word for "love" in, 

27. 
" Serapis," Ebers's, illustration from, 

41. 
Seton, Mary, and Mary Queen of 

Scots, 106. 
Seventy disciples, the, sent out in 

pairs, 176. 
Sevigne, Mme. de, and Mme. de 

Grignan, no. 
Sex no barrier to friendship, 105-114. 
Sextus, son of Tarquin, 234. 
Shaftesbury, Earl : his friendship for 

John Locke, 268-270. 
Shah Jehan and Nour Jehan, 112. 
Shairp, Principal: cited, 289 f., 296 f. 
Shakespeare: cited, 13, 33, 45, 60,95, 

234 f. ; as poet and friend, 327-341 ; 

friendship in his plays, 329-331 ; 

friendship in his sonnets, 332-341 ; 

his indebtedness to friendship, 339- 

340 f. 
Sharp, Matthew, of Hoddam, a friend 

of David Hume, 278. 
Shea, J. D. G. : cited, 243 f. 
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, as friend and 

poet, 358 f. 
"Shepherd's Calendar," Spenser's: 

edited by a friend, 324. 
"Shi King," lessons of friendship in, 

76. 
Shinar, Land of, in the Bible story, 

122. 
Shirley, James : cited, 54 f. 
"Shoo King," lessons of friendship 

in, 76. 
Shun and Yao, friendship of, 125 f. 



Index. 



411 



Sidney, Sir Philip : his friendship for 
Lord Brooke, 106 ; for his sister 
Mary, in ; for Edmund Spenser, 

325 f- 

Siegfried and Gunther, friendship of, 
287. 

Silas and St. Paul, 177. 

Sime, James : cited, 375. 

Simpson, Richard: cited, 300. 

Sirach, Son of : cited, 75,101 f. 

Siva and Vishnoo, union of, 73. 

Smith, Adam: a friend of David Hume, 
278 ; cited, 278. 

Socrates : his indebtedness to friend- 
ship, 253-256. 

Solayman, Shaykh, and Akbar Mu- 
hammad, 153 f. 

Soldurii, the, of Aquitania, 162. 

Solomon : his estimate of friendship, 
48, 74 f. ; Zabud a friend of, 125. 

Solon : his friendship for Pisistratus, 

233- 
Somers, Lord, a friend of John Locke, 

270. 
"Sonnets from the Portuguese," Mrs. 

Browning's, quotations from, 364, 

382. 
"Sonnets," Shakespeare's, quotations 

from, 334-339. 
Sophocles : cited, 52. 
Sordello : his conception of unselfish 

love, 304 f. 
Sorrows, bearing a friend's, 32. 
Southey, Robert, a friend of Cole- 
ridge and Wordsworth, 360. 
Spalatin, George, and Martin Luther, 

208. 
Spanish proverb, 23. 
Spedding, James, a biographer of Lord 

Bacon, 261 f. 
Spence, Joseph, a friend of Pope, 350. 
Spenser, Edmund : cited, 54 ; as friend 

and poet, 322-327. 
Sprenger, A. : cited, 185. 
St. Augustine, Petrarch's dialogue 

with, 309. 
Stael, Mme. de : her friendship for 

Mme. Recamier, 106 ; for M. 

Necker, no. 
Standish, Miles : his appeal to John 

Alden, 56. 
Stanley, Dean : cited, 177 ; his friend- 
ships, 230. 



Staupitz, John von, and Martin 

Luther, 209 f. 
Steele, Richard : a friend of George 

Berkeley, 276 ; a friend of Addison, 

349- 
Stein, Frau von: Goethe's friendship 

for, 377 f. 
Stoics and Epicureans, friendship 

among, 258. 
Story, Joseph : cited, 240. 
"Strafford," Browning's, an outcome 

of friendship, 362. 
Stuckenberg, J. H. W., a biographer 

of Kant, 281. 
Suffering through friendship, 89-92. 
Suicide, proposed as a proof of friend- 
ship, 112. 
Sun and moon, friendship of, 77. 
Surpassing potency of friendship, 117- 

120. 
Surrey, Earl of, and Sir Thomas 

Wyatt, as friends and poets, 318- 

321. 
Svyatogor and Ilya, 163 f. 
Swetchine, Mme., and Lacordaire, 

109. 
Swift, Dean : a friend of Berkeley, 

275 f. ; of Pope, 350. 
Sydenham, Thomas, a friend of John 

Locke, 270. 
Sydney, Lady Dorothea, and Lady 

Sophy Murray, 106. 
Syrus, Publius : cited, 57, 89. 



Talbot, Catharine, and Elizabeth 
Carter, 106. 

" Tale of Two Cities," Dickens's, illus- 
tration from, 173 f. 

Talleyrand, Prince : cited, 240. 

Talmud, the, friendship in, 24, 75. 

Tancred : his friendship for Godfrey, 
106, 170 f. ; for Bohemond, 170 f. 

Tarquin the Arrogant : his overthrow, 
234 f. 

"Task, The," Cowper's, inspired by 
friendship, 353. 

Taylor, Jeremy: cited, 13, 57 f., 88, 
95 ; a friend of Katherine Philips, 

342. 
Taylor, W. : cited, 79 f. 
Telemachus: welcomed by Menelaus, 

63. 



412 



Index, 



Tennyson, Alfred : cited, 38, 39, 55, 

90, 96 ; as friend and poet, 106, 364- 

366. 
Terence: his help from friendship, 

292. 
Theban Band of Friends, The, 160. 
Theodore of Tarsus and Hadrian, 

189-191. 
Theognis and Cyrnus, 290. 
Theseus and Pirithoiis, 157. 
Thirlwall, Connop, and his friends, 

230. 
Thomson, James, as poet and friend, 

35o f- 

Thorpe, Thomas, the bookseller, 333. 
Thorstein and Bele, 163. 
Thrale, Mrs., and Dr. Johnson, 109. 
Three -Bears, and Feather -on -the - 

Head, 165 f. 
Timon of Athens : cited, 13. 
Timothy, St., and St. Paul, 177. 
"Toleration," Locke's essay on: its 

origin, 269. 
Tragic poetry of Euripides, 289 f. 
Transfiguring power of love, 381-387. 
Trench : cited, 390, 392. 
Troy, friendship at the siege of, 157 f. 
Trumbull, Sir William, a friend of 

Pope, 350 
Tullia and Cicero, no. 
Turpin, Archbishop, and his friends, 

169. 
Tyerman, L. : cited, 225 f. 

"Uarda," quotation from, 41. 
Ueberweg : cited, 255, 276 f. 
Ulysses and Diomedes, 158, 285. 
Una and Merira Pepi, 123 f. 
Union in friendship, 72-74. 
Union of friends sought in blended 

blood, 70 f. 
Union of souls, a result of mutual 

friendship, 94. 
Universality of friendship's sway, 69- 

86. 
Unselfishness of friendship, 27-34. 
Unwin, Mrs. Mary, the friend of 

Cowper, 109, 353 f. 

"Verona, Two Gentlemen of," 
Shakespeare's, quotations from, 

33o f. 
Viking and Halfdan and Njorfe, 162 f. 



Virgil : cited, 73, 161 f. ; his friendship 
for Gallus, 293 ; for Horace, 106, 
292 f. ; for Maecenas, 293 ; for Pol- 
lio, 293 ; for Varius, 293. 

Vishnoo and Siva, union of, 73. 

Vita Nuova, Dante's, 300 f., 304. 

Voltaire : cited, 81. 

Wales, Prince of, John Locke pre- 
sented to, 275. 
Walpole, Horace, a friend of Gray, 

351- 
"Waring," Browning's, a tribute to 

Alfred Dommett, 361. 
Washington, George, and Alexander 

Hamilton, 239-247. 
Watteville, Baron von, and Count 

Zinzendorf, 226 f. 
Webster, Daniel : cited, 245. 
Weimar : its fame through Goethe's 

fame, 376 f. 
Weisse, a friend of Fichte, 282. 
Wesley, John and Charles : their 

friendships, 224-226. 
Wesleyanism : its origin in friendships, 

223-226. 
West, Richard, a friend of Gray, 351. 
What is friendship? 12-18. 
Whately, Richard, and his friends, 230. 
Whitefield and the Wesleys, 225. 
Whittier, John G. : cited, 24, 60. 
Who can be friends? 105-114. 
Wife and friend in one, 49-51, 109- 

114, 322-324, 344. 
" Wilhelm Meister," Goethe's, refer- 
ences to, 373, 375, 380. 
William III. and William Bentinck, 

106, 135-139- 
William the Silent and Charles V., 

I33-I35- 

Williams, Mr. and Mrs., friends of 
Shelley, 359. 

Wishart, George, and John Knox, 218. 

Wollaston : cited, 308. 

Woman as an objecl: of friendship, 
297-300. 

Woman's place among the Greeks, 
297 f. 

Woolsey, Theodore: cited, 390. 

Words : the more familiar the more 
vague, 14. 

" Words of the Heart," Lavater's, quo- 
tation from, 81. 



Index. 



413 



Wordsworth, William : his friendship 

for his sister, in ; for Coleridge, 

229, 359 f. ; cited, 328. 
World-wide honor of friendship, 69- 

86. 
Wotton, Sir Henry, a friend of George 

Herbert, 342. 
Wrangham : a translator of Petrarch, 

308. 
Wright, W. Aldis : a biographer of 

Lord Bacon, 261 f. 
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, and Earl of 

Surrey, as friends and poets, 318- 

321. 
Wycherly, William, a friend of Pope, 

350- 

Xavier, Francis, and Ignatius Loyola, 

218-221. 
Xenien : the joint work of Goethe and 

Schiller, 380.' 



Xerxes : his capture of statues of 
Athenian friends, 232. 

Yahya, grand vizier of Haroon-ar- 

Rasheed, 152. 
Yao and Shun, friendship of, 125 f. 
Young, Edward : cited, 45, 89, 92 ; as 

friend and poet, 349 f. 

Zabud, a friend of Solomon, 125. 
Zappi, Giambattista, and Faustina 

Maratti, 112. 
Zayd, a friend of Muhammad, 75, 184. 
Zend, root-term for friendship in, 74. 
Zend-Avesta, the, lessons of friendship 

in, jj. 
Zeno the Stoic : his view of friendship, 

258. 
Zinzendorf, Count, and Baron von 

Watteville, 226. 
Zonoras and Prince Athanase, 359. 



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